The Impact of Transformable Area Systems on Factory Planning Theory and Practice: A Study of Automobile Manufacturing Plants

Transformable areas are the missing link to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. For more than 150 years, factories have been based on terrestrial areas. It has not been recognised that areas play a major role in the transformability of factories, and thus, the transformability of areas has not yet been increased. Factory lifecycles, factory structures and terrestrial areas are not sufficiently considered in current factory planning, which does not adequately reveal the limitations of today’s factories or the potential impacts of new factory concepts that are based on systems that make areas transformable – ‘transformable area systems’. The purpose of this research is to demonstrate that the limited transformability of terrestrial areas leads to limitations and negative developments of today’s factory characteristics and capabilities, and to the limited potential of ‘Industry 4.0’, to define the requirements of transformable area systems and to indicate their potential. The research methodology is based on elements of grounded theory, on the research and analysis of literature and technologies, and on semi-structured expert interviews. Furthermore, a model for factory planning has been developed and applied in order to research and assess newly developed factory concepts. Terrestrial areas make today’s factories unsustainable, inefficient and difficult to transform. Furthermore, a genuine Fourth Industrial Revolution cannot be achieved as long as factories are constructed upon terrestrial areas that create numerous rigid factory objects and structures. This can be changed with transformable area systems which significantly and permanently increase the transformability of factories; this will have a considerable impact on factories throughout their lifecycles. This research reveals gaps in factory planning theory and the limitations of today’s factories and ‘Industry 4.0’, and demonstrates that restrictions relating to terrestrial areas can be overcome using transformable area systems in order to reach the Fourth Industrial Revolution