Selecting Manufacturing Process Chains in the Early Stage of the Product Engineering Process with Focus on Energy Consumption

Abstract

AbstractManufacturing process chains describe the concept of how the transformation of a raw material into a finished product is achieved. Within the planning phase of the process chains not only technical and economic requirements must be met but also ecological aspects need to be considered, e.g. the energy consumption during the production phase. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how the energy consumption of process chains can be considered in the early stage of the planning phase. It provides an overview of the methods that are available to describe and predict the energy demand of consumers in process chains. The presented method is based on planning data like characteristic power consumption parameters of manufacturing equipment and related time parameters. It aims at predicting the energy consumption per product. The data is needed for predictive assessment of alternative process chains and to assess the impact of energy consumption during the production phase in life cycle considerations. Finally, this chapter presents an example for the energy-aware design and selection of a preferred process chain from several alternatives. By this it is illustrated how the presented heuristic approach can be applied.KeywordsProcess chainsEnergy consumptionProduct engineering process