Abstract
Infrastructure construction projects like roads, railways and tunnels can face cost overruns, time delays and consequently the resistance from the public to their implementation. An important aspect to be considered is to provide a continuous material supply to the site to avoid construction interruptions. Traditionally, the production is organized in a centralized way with large production quantities and long lead times negatively impacting the environmental footprint of the project. On the other hand, the manufacturing industry is changing to decentralized configurations with the aim to increase the proximity to the customer. The concept of introducing non-location bound mobile factories for producing important components directly on the construction site could increase efficiency and responsiveness while at the same time improving sustainability dimensions. The paper presents the requirements and a concept for a Smart Mobile Factory suitable to supply the material to infrastructure construction projects in a sustainable way. The requirements criteria were developed in focus group sessions with industry experts and scholars. The concept was modeled and analyzed with Building Information Modeling (BIM) and the Digital Factory Planning software visTable®. It presents part of the results of the joint research project “SMF4INFRA – Smart Mobile Factory for infrastructure projects” between the ETH of Zurich and the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. The Smart Mobile Factory concept was developed by considering a case study for the construction of a hyperloop transportation system in collaboration with the research institution EuroTube Foundation.