Development of a Digital Counterpart to Aid Decision Support on Energy Consumption of an Active Manufacturing Process

Abstract

This research focused on the development of a Digital Model (DM) of a production line at a medical device company, with the objective of providing decision support to stakeholders based on their energy consumption. This model aims to reduce energy consumption by bringing operational data to process engineers, allowing them to make efficient improvement decisions while in production. In order to achieve this objective, the twin transition of digital integration and energy efficiency was enacted by organisations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA). This two-pronged approach involved working with process owners to understand the decision-making process that they undertook to streamline performance and develop the means to digitalise this data while also working with facilities and maintenance engineers to understand which equipment played the most important roles in the production process from an energy consumption perspective. By bringing the process data and energy data together in a digital model of the process, a decision support system could be developed which would unlock the potential to streamline operations not just from an output perspective, but also from an energy efficient perspective. When examining the process step with data catagorised as energy, operational and maintenance, it was found that only operational data was sufficient to support digital modelling in its current state. Therefore, the installation of a wireless energy metering network would be required to support digital modelling and further digital integration.