Towards Ultra-Efficient Industrial Areas

Abstract

Trends like the finiteness of resources and the ongoing growth of the world population, and urbanization tendencies result in the need for sustainable operations. Based on previous work concerning urban manufacturing and ultra-efficient manufacturing, further potential for the improvement of competitiveness of industrial companies can be identified. The potential is based on cluster-like effects and can be considered by a higher viewing pane, i.e. regarding a set of companies in an area instead of a single company. In the contribution, it is assumed that companies within a specific area need an additional partner, providing and managing this higher level, a service provider, which is needed to avoid local optima but target an overall maximum of "ultra-efficiency" of the industrial area. Based on this, potential services and business models for such an organization are investigated. Subsequently, the developed approach is reflected by means of an application area. The contribution ends with an outlook to further research.