Urban Factories: Identifying Products for Production in Cities

Rapid urbanization has forced to change not only the shape of growing cities but also the location and appearance of factories. This development is closely linked to more sustainable products and production and will subsequently affect the production systems. It is envisaged that factories and distributed production sites will be able to move back to the city through cleaner and more sustainable production processes. There is, however, a dearth of research into investigating suitability of existing products that can be produced in an urban environment. Therefore, this paper explores a possible approach to identify the suitability of products to be produced in urban environments based on the generic attributes of products which shape their corresponding manufacturing systems and their economic, environmental, and social impact on the urban environment. It allows matching of products to cities in order to create combinations of products and factories with suitable urban areas that positively benefit both industry and cities and supports the design of products for urban factories.