Future Factory – Manufacturing Philosophy for the Age of Uncertainty

Guiding principles of the Future Factory

The Future Factory aims to deal effectively with uncertainty and dynamics. Its production system is flexible and adaptive - and it demonstrates a competitive cost structure and high resilience in as many scenarios as possible. The prerequisites for this are: maximum transparency, digitization, modularization and standardization of assets, processes and structures, consistent use of lean and agile methods, high raw material and energy efficiency, and optimal design of physical and digital interfaces.

Continuous development of skills and mindsets at all levels of the organization ensures that the guiding principles of the Future Factory are actually put into practice. At the same time, factories of the future are characterized by the ability to optimally adapt to their role in the global production network. In discrete manufacturing, for example, the optimal interaction of capital-intensive lead plants, globally oriented component plants and flexible satellite factories with a regional focus is crucial in order to leverage the potential of the factory of the future.

Configuration of the Future Factory

Future factories are used in various scenarios. The resulting designs and structures depend on concrete strategic and industry-specific issues as well as global trends. In the coming years, ideal-typical configurations of future factories will be established, which will show certain basic patterns, but will also differ significantly depending on individual framework conditions and issues.

Adaptive Factory

The Future Factory is a team player. Its key characteristics are modularity and mobility of systems, transparency, standardization and digitalization, avoidance of wasted resources as well as comprehensive networking and connectivity. As a result, the factory of the future can be integrated quickly and efficiently into global production networks and designed according to its "playing position" and production strategy: In discrete manufacturing, for example, the interaction of complex and capital-intensive lead plants, component plants designed for global economies of scale and flexible, regionally oriented satellite factories is required in order to establish competitive and highly adaptive production.

Shop-in-Shop Factory

The construction and operation of factories is extremely knowledge and capital intensive. The factory of the future offers starting points for mitigating the associated risks: Thanks to the transparent and modular structure, as well as optimized process interfaces, innovative operating models can be implemented that reduce capital commitment. For example, individual production steps that have to take place physically in the factory can be outsourced to contractual partners or contract manufacturers. These build and operate their production section within the factory premises and embedded in the shared infrastructure and production process. The Shop-in-Shop Factory has several advantages. These include making costs more flexible by shifting capital expenditure to operating expenditure. Or the possibility of achieving economies of scale and learning effects in individual critical production stages.

Super-flex Factory

The factory of the future is far less fixed to a specific production process than conventional factories due to its flexible and modular structure. At its core, it resembles a construction kit for the provision of production capacities that can be adapted to a wide range of production requirements. Different degrees of openness are conceivable. For example, a factory can offer the prerequisites for manufacturing different products of the same type, different product groups in the same industry, or even products from different industries. As a result, factory operators are increasingly becoming platform providers for a variety of industrial scenarios.

Embedded Factory

The characteristics of the Future Factory allow for a very compact design. This enables a manufacturing scenario in which a micro-factory is embedded in a larger factory. This factory specializes in very small quantities with a high level of product complexity and a wide range of variants. Qualified personnel, local sourcing, a high level of vertical integration and adaptability make this type of factory resilient and offer good conditions for the efficient production of small-volume niche products.

Pop-up Factory

Hyper-scaleable Factory

Lights-Out Factory

Reverse Factory

Building blocks of the Future Factory

The individual best possible design of the Future Factory depends on existing structures and regional conditions of the network, strategic scenarios and factors specific to the type of production. A toolbox of methods can be defined to address structural, technological, infrastructural and organizational aspects of the Future Factory. The different weighting, characteristics and combination of these building blocks result in the specific configuration of the Future Factory.

FUTURE FACTORY BUILDING BLOCKS

Hans-Georg Scheibe
Member of the management board
Tel.: +49 89 1215 90-0

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Case Studies

Case Study

Future Factory F&B

A dairy company is continuing its success story with a clear vision: After times of war and factory fires, it is building the most technologically advanced "Future Factory" in its region. With ROI-EFESO, the company is developing a concept for the factory, which is to be built on 70,000 square meters by 2030 - and is combining this planning with a digitization/Industry 4.0 initiative for ongoing production

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