Keeping a Factory in an Energy-optimal State

The energy performance of individual machines and peripheral processes in a production system is, for the main part, not sufficiently known. The ECOMATION project aims at solving this problem by developing methods to measure and illustrate energy consumption and save energy in manufacturing processes. A holistic approach enables operators to continuously monitor a factory's energy consumption, based on two control loops: one at the shop floor level (including main processes and peripheral systems) and the other at the factory level, the two loops being interlinked in an additional step. The approach allows for the bidirectional exchange of data between the resources of both main process and peripheral processes and the higher management level. Classical approaches usually consider only the main process at machine level, even though a significant percentage of energy is required by the peripheral systems. The aim of the approach is to keep the manufacturing system in an energy-optimal state.