Investigation of the Supply Chain of Prefabricated Wooden Doors

This study focused on pre-fabricated wooden doors and their supply chain, which have all of its components pre-assembled by the supplier. The literature indicates that supply chain management in construction has four roles. One concerns the transfer of activities from the site to the supply chain to take advantage of better conditions at the fabricator‘s end. This role assumes that fabricators are in a better environment to perform certain tasks and deliver better products that can be quickly installed on site, as the product is pre-assembled. This is the first working hypothesis tested in study. A second working hypothesis is that off-site prefabricated doors have short lead times for fabrication and on-site installation and present fewer problems during installation when compared to traditional doors. The two-phase research comprised a preliminary study and two in-depth case studies about pre-fabricated wooden doors. Wooden doors presented problems related to the installation and final product quality regardless of the type of project. Some advantages of prefabricated elements were lost due lack of trust between contractors and suppliers, lack of consideration of preconditions necessary for successful site installation, and lack of standardization and tolerance management resulted in suboptimal solutions during the installation phase.