These are some tips and advices based on my experience. I thought they may be useful for people in the game:

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• Don't bother to make fancy factories untill you have all the buildings, since that point just survive as best as you can, the hub does not really ask you for so many shapes.
• The map is HUGE. Look for the right shape to work with as a resource, it will save you A LOT of work.
• Use bookmarks to locate your useful resources.
• If you can't find the exact shape you need it's better to work with a half shape than with a three parts shape. In the first case you only have to cut two halves and discard one half, in the second you have tu cut the four corners then join them together again,and you need a second resource anyway.
• Don't be scared to send to waste anything you don't need. Resources are infinite. But also looking for the right shape as said in the previous point will save you space and management effort.
• Keep your upgrades even, that is reach level x in belts, painters, splitters and miners before you step to level x 1.
• Forget adding more and more belts and capacity to your factory like crazy. Focus on building a factory that gives you a single full belt. Then, if you need more of them you just have to copy and paste your full factory as many times as you need. Factories are often way smaller than what you think and if you have a good source of blueprints you won't have a problem to copy and paste things as much as you can.
• When you reach blueprints take your time. If you manage to build a good blueprint factory and duplicate it a bunch of times until you have, say, 8 full belts you can basically forget about them and have free copypasting for the rest of your game.
• Look at the ratios and make blocks of tools that give you the same output that you feed them. One full belt goes in, one full belt must go out so any time you have to cut, don't just put a cutter but a block of cutters. Some tool blocks that will give you a full belt are:
  • 5 miners chained
  • 5 color mixers
  • 4 cutters
  • 6 painters
  • 4 double painters (they need half the paint too but i never bothered about that as resources are basically infinite).
  • 8 stackers
• Until floating layers, try to solve every layer independently and don't mix their production lines. A four layer shape is just four single layer shapes a last step to join them together.
• To plan a factory make it in stages.
  • First: Design. Build a single shape process, don't worry about how many shapes you need or how quick the process is. Just focus on what you have to do to get the shape. Choose a direction and compromise to build your factory facing this direction. For example I find it ideal and always build from left to right. Resources come from the left and the process unravels to the right.
  • Second: Build: Once you know how to do the shape, make your factory using the blocks I talked before. Build each block as straight as you can facing this direction. Don't put the painters right to your cutters, then your stackers up, then whatever down. Sometimes it may seem counterintuitive but facing a direction will make things cleaner for you. At this stage don't worry about space, leave it abundantly so you can delete and redo a step easily if you need to. This will give you a in
  • Third: Refine and optimize: When you have a full belt factory you can cut the long belts and adjust the position of the different steps so the factory is as packed as you can. Once you're done you'll have a perfect factory you can easily replicate anyywhere.
• Mix your paint right near the color source, not near or inside your factory, it will save you a lot of belts.
• Pin an area in your map and design your blocks there so you can go there and copy them as you need them. Every time you get a new building go there and check your designs to see if you can take advantage and optimize them.
• You don't need storages EVER until you make your MAM and need to storm the Hub somehow with 100 shapes/sec. In normal factories storages aren't for storing, but for overflowing. They're only useful when you have the risk to clog your factory because one of your belts is overloaded regarding the others. If you design your factories properly you will hardly need to put a storage or remember they exist.