*Principles for Designing Green, Lean, and Smart Microfactories: Chicken as a Model DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109645*

electric vehicle manufacturer headquartered in London, UK. The main advantages of microfactory are saving a substantial amount of space, energy, materials, time, and upfront capital costs [30]. Many companies are establishing microfactories leveraging new technologies. For example, Local Motors is a pioneer in establishing a microfactory for automotive production. In 2010, the company established its first microfactory for the commercial production of Rally Fighter cars in Phoenix, Arizona [31]. Microfactories have been built in many sectors, including automotive, apparel, consumer goods, food and beverage, electronics, and electronic waste recycling.

Microfactories are small high-tech manufacturing units located close to customers. These can even function as retail outlets for customized products. In the garment industry, some of the microfactories are producing clothes customized for the users. For instance, customers can send their preferred designs using the manufacturer's app and can receive a perfectly styled and fitted dress the next day from the manufacturer. The following are the benefits of microfactories:


The supply chain complexity also gets simplified with microfactories responding to a pull market: only after getting confirmed orders from the customer, are the products manufactured. The following principles can be used in designing products and microfactories.

Products:


Manufacturing processes:


Divergent, a company located in California, is a good example of a microfactory. It developed its own Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS) which is a complete software-hardware solution designed to replace traditional vehicle manufacturing. It is a complete modular digital factory for complex structures [32]. Given a set of digital requirements as input, the machine automatically engineers, additively manufactures and assembles any complex structure. The system can move seamlessly between manufacturing different vehicle models. To achieve the objectives of the circular economy, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has launched the circular car initiative [33]. The term "circular car" refers to a hypothetical vehicle with maximum material efficiency. This notional vehicle is expected to produce zero materials waste and zero pollution during the manufacturing process, product usage, and disposal. Many organizations have been exploring similar approaches toward a circular economy. For example, the production of rechargeable batteries, in their journey from mine to electric vehicles, poses significant social and environmental risks. The Battery Passport is created as a digital representation of a battery that conveys information about all applicable environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and lifecycle requirements based on a comprehensive definition of a circular battery [34].

## **7. Conclusions**

In creating products and production systems, nature has been using design blueprints embedded in DNA, nano-biomaterials, nanomanufacturing, and selfassembly processes. The industrial revolutions in the past 200 years have thrown nature into disarray. Copying and imitating nature's designs and processes can lead to green, lean, and smart products and production systems. For example, in all flowers, fruits' beauty, function, and non-toxic decomposition coexist in their designs. In search of a solution to a problem, an important question to ask is, "WWND—What

*Principles for Designing Green, Lean, and Smart Microfactories: Chicken as a Model DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109645*

Would Nature Do?" Keen observation and analysis of nature can lead to creative and sustainable innovations [35]. The solution to the industry's attempts to solve complex sustainability issues is to look at nature. In this chapter, we examined a chicken egg and chicken body from the green, lean, and smart lens to present a framework that designers of products and production systems can use for learning and benchmarking human-designed products and human-built factories.
