Competitive and sustainable manufacturing by means of ultra-efficient factories in urban surroundings

The rapid growth of the world population, the finiteness of resources on our planet Earth and the ongoing tendency towards urbanization result in the need to question our actions and economic activities, also for industrial enterprises. A paradigm shift to decouple growth and resource utilization is needed. By means of ultra-efficiency, factories are targeted, whose positive impact to their surrounding is optimized instead of only minimizing negative influences. In the contribution, the concept of ultra-efficient factories and first tools for their implementation are introduced. Therefore, the term ultra-efficient factory is defined based on the state-of-the art. On this definition, spheres of activity for ultra-efficient factories under consideration of urban surroundings are determined. For the spheres of activity, concrete criteria to assess the according maturity of companies are identified and aggregated into a comprehensive maturity model. The maturity model enables the determination of concrete potentials for advancements of companies. To support the industrial application of the theoretic work, industrial best practices are determined and a visual tool is developed.