Sustainability in manufacturing and factories of the future

• Published in: International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing-Green Technology, 1(4) Vol. 1; no. 4; pp. 283 - 292
• Main Authors: Herrmann, Christoph, Schmidt, Christopher, Kurle, Denis, Blume, Stefan, Thiede, Sebastian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Springer Korean Society for Precision Engineering 01.10.2014; Springer Nature B.V; 한국정밀공학회
• Subjects: Demand; Demographics; Energy Efficiency; Engineering; Factories; Industrial and Production Engineering; Industrial plants; Invited Paper; Manufacturing; Natural resources; New technology; Sustainable Development; Trends; 기계공학; Sustainable manufacturing; Factory of the future; Paradigm change in manufacturing; Manufacturing trends; Holistic factory
• ISSN: 2288-6206; 2198-0810
• DOI: 10.1007/s40684-014-0034-z

An increasing global demand for natural resources and the inherent challenges accompanying this demand pose a great task for manufacturing companies. Apart from this, new technologies and a demographic change of the workforce as well as the desire for new individualized products make manufacturing more challenging than ever. To succeed in this new setting manifold perspectives of a factory have been proposed in order to enhance the understanding of the complex interdependencies between the factory elements. Against this background, this paper starts with a short overview regarding the paradigm change in manufacturing including contemporary trends triggering the requirements for factories of the future. Subsequent to that, a selection of factory perspectives is revised indicating the demand for a new holistic perspective of a factory that is more suitable with respect to the new trends. For that reason a new holistic perspective on the factory of the future is presented.