Factory planning means making decisions

Dipl.- Ing. (FH) Hans Reinerth is a project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA) in Stuttgart. Reinerth has been working with factory planning methods and advising companies for over 20 years. What factors determine planning, and what should factory planners look for in a project in the age of Industry 4.0? Our interview.

What challenges do factory planners face today?

“Shorter product life cycles, changing technologies – this plays a major role in factory planning. The core issue here is the interplay between products, technologies and buildings, whereby the buildings must, after all, remain intact and function even after the products have been discontinued. This interaction will be an even greater challenge in the future. Buildings and plants must be constantly adapted to ever new market requirements. As factory planners, we are faced with the paradox of having to plan for the manufacture of products that do not even exist at the time of our planning. Factory planning decisions are usually expensive, difficult to reverse and have a long impact – these are the three points that have always been critical, and that has not changed to this day.”

Is there a unifying paradigm and how did it emerge?

“For about ten years now, the topics of sustainability and adaptability have played a central role. It’s about a holistic view of processes and workflows, buildings and spaces, and organization. The human factor is increasingly taking center stage in organizational topics. It is becoming increasingly important to recognize that the factory is not just a place where people spend eight hours a day between clocking in and clocking out. What happens in between is also very important: atmosphere, communication, feeling good. In Germany, we’re dealing more and more with order-based work, and that places special demands on communication between the different departments.”

What do flexibility and mutability mean?

“Factory planning means making decisions. We always set a maximum, and how that is then actually used varies greatly. The factory planner can also control how much is produced in a factory by the number of employees in certain areas. There are many possible principles in the literature that, if applied correctly, can lead to desired improvements. In practice, a few approaches have proven effective and can be questioned as part of any factory planning task. Mobility, i.e., enabling workstations, production lines, or even closed production areas to be spatially repositioned at new locations, is certainly one of them.”

What mistakes are still being made and how can they be avoided?

“One of the main sources of error is too short-term orientation and incorrect formulation of the task. It often happens that a new plant is to be installed somewhere in the plant very quickly, but the prerequisites and consequences are not sufficiently considered. We must always broaden our view and include all those affected. The knowledge of the employees is very important, and to be able to use it, you have to get people on board during planning and communication. You also shouldn’t do without ideal planning, for example, to be able to optimize the flow of materials. That way, you can recognize advantages and disadvantages at an early stage.”

They recommend planning from the inside out. What does that look like in concrete terms?

“One always plans production sequences, i.e. processes, with all the necessary equipment, operating resources, storage facilities, conveyors and so on. The goal is to find an ideal setup that optimally supports the production flow. Outside, this is the shell that supports the production flow. Here, the aspects of energy efficiency and environmental protection also play a role. Ideally, the architect then places the walls around our surfaces. The result is usually a compromise.”

How can areas and paths be optimized?

“There are clear procedures for optimizing space. But you have to distinguish between production areas, storage areas and social areas. All production areas are planned from the plants, they specify the areas, the required supply infrastructure and the surroundings. In logistics, the containers, their dimensions and the transport technology play a role. According to this and on the basis of legal requirements, the routes are laid out. The social areas are determined on the basis of the requirements of the Workplace Ordinance. Office planning is more complicated, here there is the measure of 10 square meters per employee, added to which are further meeting rooms, communication islands, etcetera.”

What is the importance of modular and Mobile room systems?

“From my experience, I can mention three points: first, as Enclosures of facilities that can affect other areas through sound or substance emissions. Secondly, hall heights can be better used by elevations. This is where C and small parts find their place, which can be stored on a platform. Assembly tables can be placed underneath. Third, flexible offices. This is an important point, as it creates interfaces between production and development, management and operational implementation. However, in the case of higher master offices, care should be taken to ensure that no one on the ground feels supervised. In addition, such systems can be used very well for expansions, and test labs can easily be brought to the production line.”

How important is the flow of communication and how can you promote it?

“Communication is a very important point – where do people meet under what circumstances, that is always an interesting question for us factory planners. Mobile room systems are a very good way to realize places for standing, where employees exchange ideas for 15-20 minutes every day about which orders need to be brought forward, where there are missing parts, and so on. Of course, quiet rooms are required for this.”

What changes with the concept of Industry 4.0?

“Factory planning must continue to proceed according to a systematic approach, such as that laid down in VDI standard 5200. However, we must pay attention to some trends: The Industrie 4.0 concept will lead to a reduction in on-site inventories through customer-specific procurement options; this is the only way to achieve the desired diversity of production variants. More flexible automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are an additional adjusting screw that will necessitate changes in logistics. It is very difficult to estimate today what effects will result from the future human-robot interface. The communication requirements will also increase even further. Everything will become more flexible, but we won’t be moving machines and changing surfaces every day.”