Subfactories

Subfactories are smaller production facilities that operate under a parent organization, typically as part of a broader manufacturing network. They may be legally integrated as subsidiaries or operate as contract or cooperative arrangements. Subfactories are often established to locate production closer to markets, reduce transportation costs, or specialize in a niche process within a product family. They enable decentralization and modular capacity, and can share common systems such as enterprise resource planning, quality management, and branding to maintain cohesion with the parent company.

In practice, subfactories vary in governance from wholly owned subsidiaries to joint ventures or contracted facilities. Management may coordinate through centralized standards while delegating day-to-day operations to local management. Benefits include shorter lead times, risk diversification, and access to regional talent. Challenges include maintaining uniform quality, data integration, regulatory compliance, and overhead costs of multiple facilities.

In software development and testing, the term subfactory or SubFactory describes a factory construction pattern used to create related objects. In Python testing, the factory_boy library provides SubFactory to specify that a field should be populated by another factory. This helps ensure consistent, realistic test data across related models. The concept is distinct from manufacturing use and refers to object creation patterns in code.