BIO-INSPIRED FACTORY LAYOUTS: A MORPHOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR INVESTIGATING DESIGN CRITERIA

Abstract

Common factory layouts design is focused on the characteristics of products, their corresponding production processes and the type of company. Thus, factory layout planning seeks to arrange individual organizational resources in a defined area, based on the optimization of transport costs. Moreover, living systems found in the nature are confronted with similar logistical problems. Literature in this regard has shown, that living systems have the ability to cope with short- and long-term changes. Hence, the main question arising from the described problematic is: which criteria should be considered for developing bio-inspired layouts. Consequently, this paper explores new efficient approaches for factory and material flow planning, using biomimetics, which combines the disciplines of biology and technology with the goal of solving technical problems. A literature review is conducted to acknowledge nature principles associated to logistic problems analyzing their ability to increase efficiency and flexibility in factory layouts. By means of a morphological analysis, different criteria and characteristics relevant for companies willing to adopt a bio-inspired layout are analyzed. Finally, preliminary results indicate that biological principles and structures, e.g. nautilus shell, help to improve the allocation of organizational resources in factory layouts. Further findings show that bio-inspired layouts are more suitable for intermitted material flow, rather than for continuous material flow.