Lindbäcks Bygg AB: Raising the bar through process mapping

Lindbäcks Bygg is a family business founded in 1924 in the small village of Kallfors, southwest of Piteå in Norrbotten, Sweden. Today, they are Europe’s leading producer of industrially produced apartment buildings, with 310 employees and a turnover of SEK 1.2 billion.

We talked to Peter Öberg about how, with the help of 2c8 Apps, they have managed to lift their gaze and understand how the different parts of the business interact.

December 17, 2024

The journey for Lindbäcks Bygg began back in 1924 with a village saw. Much has developed since then, and in 1994, they started building houses vertically. In 2018, a new state-of-the-art production facility for apartment buildings was completed in Piteå.

However, a few years after the completion of the production plant, the performance of a strained industry began to falter. Many external circumstances affected the housing market, and propertie owners wanted to build fewer houses than before. Furthermore, Lindbäcks felt that mistakes were being made in the projects they were running without really being able to understand why this was happening.

“We were in a situation where we couldn’t see the forest for the trees,” says Peter.

At Lindbäcks, they felt strongly that everyone knew what to do, but they couldn’t look up and understand how it all fits together. They also had difficulty agreeing internally on what is cost-driving within the organization. A change was needed.

Towards a matrix-based organization

In connection with all this, Lindbäcks Bygg also gets a new CEO. This CEO had a vision of moving towards a matrix organization, unlike the line organization that Lindbäcks has always been. Peter and his colleague Anna, today vice president of the company, were tasked with creating a business management system to identify input and output and setting metrics on this. With this, they wanted to gain control over things they did, ensure that mistakes do not happen, and that they get control of what is cost-driving.

“We immediately thought that this seemed easy. We already work in processes and we know what the overall flow looks like,” says Peter.

They sat down with key people in the organization and started working in workshops. Initially, the work went well, and they agreed on the processes, but it wasn’t long before the processes started to be questioned. It quickly became clear that the conditions for building two-story and four-story buildings are very different. There were quickly a lot of ‘ifs’, ‘buts’, and ‘maybes’. Once again, the feeling that they were ‘not seeing the forest for the trees’ was confirmed, which was one of the root causes of the changes that needed to be made.

Peter and Anna returned to their CEO and explained that they needed to set a new goal in the project: to create a description of their core process. This was to avoid getting bogged down in all the details too quickly. They changed their approach, and instead of identifying all the hundreds of activities to be performed in a project, they chose to focus on what the first level would look like.

The real process work begins

They returned to the groups of key people within the organization and took a fresh look at the work. They agreed that they knew how work was done at all stations in the factory, how drawings should be made, and how files should be saved. They now needed to focus on “what do we have to do every time in every project we do?” instead of “how do we nail the facade?”.

The first version of the main process map was created in Visio, consisting of hundreds of files and documents.

“When the first version was ready, we felt this would be a real shelf warmer. We needed to find a better way to present it, and that’s how we found 2c8 Apps,” says Peter.

When they started mapping in 2c8 Apps, they suddenly saw things in the process that they had not seen before. Everything was now put together into one product. For example, they noticed that at the beginning of the process, protocols were followed that responsible roles in later stages had no idea they needed to adhere to.

“We quickly realized how our documents related to the process, where we made decisions that affected other parts of the process, where we needed resources from other lines, etc. Among other things, we realized that we had about ten different names for our schedules. Sometimes they were called the same thing but contained different things, and sometimes they were called different things, but the content was the same,” Peter continues.

After much mapping and involving all the key people in the processes, they finally had a process hierarchy they felt proud of. It started from the highest level of main processes, all the way down to the job descriptions for the stations in the factory, among others. With 2c8 Apps, they could suddenly see the forest all the trees had previously hidden.

Using the new operational system in practice

But how is the product Lindbäcks Bygg created in 2c8 Apps used? The system has helped them in several different parts of the business.

Project planning based on the process map

At each project kick-off meeting, the project team is now tasked with back-casting the process. A back-casting means that they go through the process from end to start. This is to find choices that are made, risks that exist, critical steps, and what resources they have against the core process. They simply analyze if they are following the core process or if they are deviating from it. This analysis then turns into actual points in the project team protocol. Against these points, schedules, and KVIPs are updated. In this way, they managed to reach a consensus in the early phase of the project.

Project monitoring

The follow-up that takes place continuously during the project is also based on the process map. Here, they ask questions such as:

• Have these steps landed? If not, what have we done instead?
• Have we addressed the risks we raised in the project team protocol?
• Can we see that we have passed the risks in the process?
• Are we on schedule?

Errors in the process

The process map is also used to ensure that relevant employees are informed when things go wrong. Lindbäcks Bygg is a large organization with many different roles, so they have previously experienced difficulties with who needs to be informed. Now, when an error occurs in the process, they can stop, look at the process map, and clearly see which upcoming steps and people will be affected. This way of working ensures that they can minimize the amount of consequential errors in the process.

Onboarding of new employees

When new employees start at Lindbäcks Bygg, they are introduced with the help of process maps. This gives them a clear understanding of their tasks and how they relate to other parts of the business.

“It is clear to all employees what the flow looks like. They can see what is created in each step, and it increases understanding of, for example, when input must be received, as it is clear where decisions are made in the processes.”

Finally, Peter explains how they will continue to work on their processes and get even more out of the way. For example, they will start with improvement work, follow up on deviations, and set more KPIs against their processes.