Towards eco-factories of the future

One-third of the global greenhouse gas emissions is caused by combusting fossil fuels to manufacture products and goods. Contemporary initiatives to lower the emissions chiefly focus on eco-efficiency, seeking for minimized energy demand and to a smaller extend also for minimized resource consumption. In addition to that, new technologies, a demographically changing workforce and the desire for new individualized products put further pressure on manufacturing companies. To encounter all those new trends and challenges successfully, various perspectives of a factory have been proposed to improve the understanding of all involved interdependencies between the factory elements. However, most of those perspectives lack to take all contemporary challenges and trends into account. Therefore, this chapter provides an extended perspective on the elements of a future factory.