Energy Efficiency Assessment in Production Line: An Approach towards Sustainable Manufacturing

Abstract

Global demands of energy which causes a quick depletion of the natural energy reserves become a critical concern. Industrial sector is concerned to be the largest energy consumer compared to other sectors. Thus, an energy efficiency improvement tends to be a proper solution in addressing this problem. This work aims to analyse a prospect energy efficiency improvement within a production line. A discrete-event simulation (DES) was used to investigate the energy saving potential and a case study was conducted in a crumb rubber company. Three parameters were taken into consideration to calculate the energy consumption, i.e. processing time, working shift schedule, and machine states. An initial model which represents an actual condition of the manufacturing production line was developed. From the analysis of the initial model result, a recommendation scenario was built. It was shown that a reduction of 8.22% in the energy consumption is achievable by implementing the suggested scenario.