A CONTINGENCY APPROACH TO THE CO-LOCATION OF DESIGN TEAM MEMBERS

Abstract: Background: A “Big Room”, a way of organizing design team members through integration, can be found as one of the tools in the “Lean management” philosophy that made Toyota as a car Manufacturer successful. NCC, one of the largest construction companies in the northern European construction industry, is developing their own Big Room concept under the name of NCC Project Studio to improve building design results. Purpose: Describe and analyze the current use of NCC Project Studio, and propose recommendations for improvements to the design team constellations. Of particular importance are the issues of who to involve in the NCC Project Studio, how, and to what extent, during the design phase. Method: The study has been conducted using case study methodology. Empirical material was collected in both a longitudinal and cross-sectional manner and was presented after thematic analysis. The empirical material was contrasted against primarily theory of lean construction before recommendations for NCC were provided. Conclusion: Improvements of the NCC Project Studio concept are threefold. First, NCC is recommended to involve a larger number of designers and customers in the everyday work within the Project Studio. Second, the strategic process of working within the Studio, is recommended to include a more precise and validated business plan in the early stages. Third, for the operational process, implementing the Last Planner system is recommended.