Energy performance evaluation and improvement of unit-manufacturing processes: injection molding case study

•Presents a new science-based guideline to predict energy for unit-manufacturing processes.•Proposes metrics to benchmark and evaluate the energy performance for manufacturing.•Presents a systematic approach to select an appropriate energy improvement strategy.•The guideline is implemented by developing a graphic user interface (GUI).•Contributes in developing a standard reference for consistent comparison of energy for manufacturing.

In an effort to make more sustainable decisions, industry seeks reliable methods to assess and compare sustainability for manufacturing. Sustainability characterization is intended to provide such a reliable method to access and track sustainability information. As a step towards developing a standard reference for sustainability characterization of unit-manufacturing processes, in this paper, we focus on injection molding with energy as a sustainability indicator. This paper proposes a science-based guideline for energy: (i) prediction, (ii) benchmarking and performance evaluation, and (iii) improvement, for unit-manufacturing processes, which unlike the previous methods does not require a physical benchmark. We discuss in detail the steps of the proposed guideline for the injection molding process. The guideline considers different influencing factors such as part geometry, material-related physical and processing properties, and the manufacturing equipment information. The guideline is implemented by developing a user friendly system, and is demonstrated by a case study. We expect this work to contribute to the development of a standard reference methodology to help further sustainability in the manufacturing sector.