Planning Method for Future-Proof Factory Buildings

Abstract

Due to competitive pressure and varying customer demands, product and technology life cycles are constantly shortening. Thus, manufacturing companies must handle the increasing discrepancy between long building life cycles and shortening product and technology life cycles. For economic and sustainability reasons, shortening the building life cycles is no viable option. Instead, factory buildings should be able to meet the changing production requirements and thus lay the foundation for a resilient manufacturing system. As it is not economically reasonable to build production buildings that simply maximize flexibility and changeability, an estimation of consistent future requirements is necessary. This estimation should focus on the requirements of the most rigid parts of the building. Traditional, statistic-based forecasting methods are not suitable because of the long planning horizons in building planning. However, methods used in corporate foresight promise good results. This paper gives a short overview of the research status and the relevant terminologies. After that, a method to cope with the described challenge is presented. The method identifies possible future developments of the production system. It then translates these developments into requirements on the building system and evaluates different degrees of requirement fulfillment. On this basis, the method helps to decide what specific developments the building should cover. Unlike existing approaches, this method focuses not only on the factory building itself as the system of highest relevance for long-term changeability but also reduces the execution effort and improves the integration of production planning and building planning.