Urban production to advance the competitiveness of industrial enterprises

Talent shortage, flexibility to cope with the volatility of the markets and the ongoing globalization tendencies are just some of the challenges for industrial companies. Current studies about global trends and drivers point to dramatic changes like population growth, resource consumption and urbanization. The trends result for industrial enterprises in the need for sustainable acting under special consideration of urban areas for their products and production facilities. But the implementation of approaches for Urban Production is not only a challenge for enterprises; it results in advantages concerning talents and flexibility. The paper addresses the field under the perspective of companies in developed countries where it results in competitive advantages, especially concerning talents and flexibility. In the paper, elements of Urban Production are introduced, respective potential competitive advantages are shown and examples for their leveraging are presented.