Target group
Industrial companies with energy-intensive production resources.
Solution
Green4Machine helps companies with old and/or new machine tools and equipment to systematically record consumption. Machines can even be shut down or switched to standby automatically via I/O hardware. Green4Machine continuously records all relevant consumption values and enables an assessment of machine efficiency. The foundation for this work was laid by S4P from 2010 onward in the research projects Green4SCM as well as SynErgie I and II. Green4Machine allows you to:
- systematically record consumption (energy, compressed air, etc.),
- shut down machines and sustainably reduce energy consumption,
- fine-schedule orders while optimising energy usage (e.g. long runners in the night shift),
- perform pre-, in-process and post-calculation of orders or items including energy consumption — no science fiction: already mandatory in Scandinavia.
Recording energy data
As illustrated by the example of a grinding machine, production machines need energy (electricity, compressed air) and consumables (cooling lubricants) in addition to raw materials to perform value-adding work. Outputs of the production process include not only the actual product (workpiece) but also exhaust air/heat and waste or by-products (chips, grinding sludge). The consumption behaviour of a production machine is not static but dynamic, depending on the machine’s operating states. This results in a load profile with characteristic phases whose analysis reveals the energy consumption of individual components and where improvement can start. A detailed breakdown of the example shows that only about 16 % of the input power actually goes into the value-adding process (metal removal by grinding).
Only the continuous recording of all relevant consumption values enables a meaningful assessment of machine efficiency and the derivation of improvement measures. The challenges here lie in data acquisition and processing, but also in visualising energy and material flows at the machine (for example for machine operators). Green4Machine takes care of continuous recording and evaluation. The modular Green4Machine solution consists of:
- Data ingestion: interface to any ERP/PPS system.
- Planning and optimisation: energy-efficiency add-on module for 4APS.
- Acquisition and action: 4MDE server and I/O hardware for capturing any digital and analogue 12 V signal sources as well as actuator functionality.
- Visualisation and analysis: presentation and analysis of energy consumption.
Planning and optimisation
Customer and production orders, operations, resources and their capacities are the central elements of backlog-free fine scheduling. A detailed description of multi-resource scheduling is available in the 4APS brochure.
Every operation today already contains information about time consumption (setup, unit, total time) and quantity/quality of required resources (machine, operator, raw material). Energy consumption can be handled in exactly the same way. By analogy, this also enables pre-, in-process and post-calculation with energy hourly rates. Consumption values can be stored in the item master data and printed directly on quotations, order confirmations and delivery notes — already standard practice in Scandinavia.
Visualisation and analysis
Since all data is stored in a SQL database, evaluations can be built in various ways:
- MS Excel and similar: via ODBC on views of the S4P database (custom-made).
- Reports: printable/exportable evaluations using reporting tools.
- Interactive cockpits: with BI tools such as QlikView (management level).
Benefits
- Energy consumption ↓
- Production costs ↓
- Waste ↓
Given continuously rising energy costs, energy has become a production factor that can no longer be ignored. The following simple business case with return-on-investment (ROI) illustrates the monetary benefit:
- Number of machines in the company: 20
- Average energy consumption per machine tool: 45,000 kWh (two-shift operation)
- Assumed average electricity price: EUR 0.15/kWh
Total electricity cost of all machines per year: EUR 135,000 → assumed saving with Green4Machine: 20 % = EUR 27,000 per year → break-even reached in around 1.5 years.