To design new—or to redesign old—manufacturing facilities in the future will require a much broader systems view than has been used in the past. Thetotalecosystem, in which the manufacturing sub-system is merely one component, must be considered and optimized. This has not been done in the past, to the detriment of the ecosystem. The problem is therefore one where the internal activities of the manufacturing system must be correlated with the externalities in the larger ecosystem in order to achieve the necessary optimization. The real problem is how to do this, and how should the internalities and externalities be measured? Examples are given to indicate the magnitude of the problem. The two most directly related factors causing it are suggested to be overpopulation and inadequate and inappropriate decision criteria in the form of product cost minimization. The former creates facilities design conditions and increasing rates of use of basic resources. The latter creates inadequate systems designs, as history has so recently demonstrated. The problem therefore is to establish better criteria, more efficient measures of effectiveness, and hopefully to develop studies that will replace empiricism and intuition with known measurements that will allow optimization of the total ecosystem leading to an improved ‘ quality of life ’ for all.