A review of energy consumption and minimisation strategies of machine tools in manufacturing process

Abstract

A global rise in demand for energy gives rise to a plethora of challenges like the increase in greenhouse gas emissions with its associated environmental impact. The manufacturing sector is a key wealth-generating sector in any economy and with significant amounts of energy consumed, they play a key role in any energy minimisation strategy and policy. In this paper, a top-to-bottom review of energy consumption and minimisation strategies of machine tools in a manufacturing process is presented. Firstly, we review the state-of-the-art on various energy consumption models for the machining process and the application of these models in production planning and scheduling. Secondly, we review the various energy reduction strategies for different manufacturing process and their limitations. Finally, we examine the implementation level of energy model in production and planning for energy minimisation problem in the literature and conclude with valuable insights on current research directions. Taken together, this review lays a solid foundation to contributing to an understanding of the state-of-the-art on various work on energy minimisation strategies especially at the production and planning level which are particularly relevant to reducing carbon footprint, costs of production and will be particularly valuable to the academia, industry and policy makers.