Containerized Manufacturing Systems: A Contribution to Designing Resilient Factories

Increasing uncertainty in global value networks requires manufacturing companies to cope with changing political frame conditions, altering manufacturing environments, or external shocks such as disasters. For this reason, a novel concept of Containerized Manufacturing Systems (ConMS) is introduced, which might significantly contribute to more resilient value creation throughout the manufacturing industry. With mobility as the leading principle, ConMS combine the paradigms of smart manufacturing and mobile container factories to provide a new layer of changeability to manufacturing systems. A first contribution to the theoretical foundation of ConMS is discussed. For this purpose, a systematization, i.e., a morphology of ConMS characteristics, is presented. A fictive case study based on the matrix production paradigm demonstrates the application potential for a highly automated and mobile factory and serves as initial verification of the novel ConMS concept.