Stochastic Energy Opportunity Windows in Advanced Manufacturing Systems

To improve energy efficiency is becoming more and more critical for manufacturing enterprises because of the rising energy costs, increased global competitiveness, environmental concern and more government regulations. Production control has been considered as one of the most cost-effective methods to achieve the goal. This paper discusses the energy saving opportunities in a multistage manufacturing system through strategically shut down machines to reduce their running time. We start from the investigation on what is the longest time that machines can be shut down or turn to energy saving mode without affecting system production. Then, energy opportunity windows (EOWs) of machines are defined. A Markov chain model is developed to estimate the EOWs. A case study is conducted to demonstrate the proposed model and its potential on energy saving in multistage manufacturing systems.