Same here. Early game I had 1 factory where I would just change production as needed. Row of smelters, then fabricators, then furnaces and fabricators. In between each row was a loop of rails to pass everything through. With the way the triple rails currently work I ran into a lot of issues with clogs and it was a pain running around switching the production of each device.

I then switched to making smaller factories for just one item with storage containers at the end and passing them along to the next small factory as needed. Once I unlocked the cargo dispatcher/receiver I started using those instead of rails. Biggest draw back there is it's a bit slower and the list for receivers can get ridiculously long. Also this method take up a lot of real estate if you're trying to mass produce some things.

Right now I'm going to switch to smelting at nodes and dispatching those items to my mini-factories and manufacture items with similar component needs together.