The demand for change in factory operations is increasingly clear. Disruptions, delays and cost overruns are all too common, and conventional solutions may work in one instance but fall short in another. Modular design may hold the answer.
Facility modularity can take several forms. You may design workflows to enable quick adjustments between them, such as expanding one while reducing another with minimal downtime. Alternatively, you may use machines that can complete multiple tasks and assign them to various places in production as necessary.
Regardless of the specifics, modularity centers around flexibility by design. It ensures your workflows can change at a moment’s notice to suit new needs.
Benefits of Modular Factory Design
Redesigning your floor plan or workflow for modularity will likely incur some upfront charges and complications. However, the long-term benefits are hard to ignore.
Efficiency
Most notably, modular factory design lets you maintain peak efficiency over longer stretches. Even the most well-designed, well-operated facility will eventually encounter unplanned downtime — major manufacturers experience 20 downtime events monthly on average. Modularity provides a way around such incidents.
When one machine can serve multiple purposes, you can quickly rework one production line to take over from another. Alternatively, you can remove malfunctioning equipment from the floor and replace it with another modular unit to minimize downtime while fixing the affected asset.
Outside of unplanned downtime, modularity lets you adapt to changing consumer demands without lengthy redesigns. Other normal disruptions and bottlenecks become less of an issue. While the production process itself may be no faster than a conventional setup, it maintains that speed more consistently.
Resilience
Similarly, modular factory design fosters resilience. Supply chain disruptions are an unfortunate but unavoidable obstacle today. Events lasting a month or longer happen every 3.7 years at least, and growing geopolitical tensions introduce additional threats. When you cannot avoid a storm, you must be able to weather it, which requires adaptability.
A modular workflow can shift according to changes in supply or demand. You may need to reduce work on one product while focusing on another amid a sudden shift. Alternatively, you may need to increase or lower your capacity to prevent surpluses or stock-outs. Modularity enables such adaptations.
Manufacturers have reworked facilities to suit new needs long before the word “modular” entered the industry lexicon. However, these changes require significant lost time and expenses to facilitate in a conventional, fixed setup. Enabling flexibility from the beginning removes those concerns.
Sustainability
Embracing modularity also has environmental benefits. A fully modular setup allows your facility to perform more functions without physical expansions or additional equipment. As a result, your energy and resource consumption fall.
Quick adaptations also minimize power and material waste. In some cases, you may be able to produce a wider range of products within a single facility to reduce reliance on outside suppliers. Supply chain-related emissions can lessen as a result.
These benefits produce tangible financial results in addition to lowering your impact on the environment. Consequently, they’re worth pursuing even as confidence in environmental, social and governance strategies wavers in the current sociopolitical climate.
How to Implement Modular Design at Your Facility
The first step in implementing modular factory design is to understand your current workflows. Implementing controls engineering software across your facility can significantly improve operational visibility, making it easier to see where your processes could benefit from modular alternatives.
Transitioning the entire facility to a modular design will take significant time and investment. Consequently, it’s best to focus on one area at a time, starting with the point of largest improvement. Any prominent bottlenecks or areas where changes frequently occur are good applications for modular equipment or workflow redesigns.
Regarding specific technologies, collaborative robots (cobots) lend themselves to modularity more than fixed assets. While cobots account for just 34.9% of robotics adoption today, these machines are more flexible than conventional automation, as they’re designed to work alongside humans. Building production lines around such equipment instead of relying on inflexible alternatives makes quick changeovers easier.
Employee training must also adapt to facilitate modularity. Each worker should gain experience with every work line and product. Similarly, employees should know how to operate multiple machines. That way, you can move people around the facility as necessary without a drop in performance.
Finally, remember that modularity should extend into the supply chain, too. Consider diversifying your supplier base and maintaining contact with multiple logistics partners so you can change your sourcing strategy as needed when broader disruptions occur.
Modern Manufacturers Need Modularity
Changes are both frequent and wide-reaching in today’s manufacturing landscape. Your facility must be able to adapt to such shifts when they arise to minimize losses and maximize productivity. While several smaller optimizations can help you in that endeavor, modularity is among the most impactful.
A modular factory can withstand disruptions of all sizes and types. Embracing such a design philosophy today will prepare you to weather the storms of tomorrow.
