Energy efficient manufacturing from machine tools to manufacturing systems

Energy efficiency is one of the key drivers for sustainability. Within manufacturing environments, energy efficiency importance has grown, and it is now considered among other decision-making factors such as productivity, cost and flexibility. However, in most cases the energy consumption of the various components of the manufacturing systems, such as machine tools, are considered using average energy consumption models for the needs of discrete event simulation. The paper presents an overview of energy efficiency approaches, focusing in both production and machine tool level and how these two can be integrated together. Furthermore, the main challenges towards energy efficient manufacturing are discussed identifying the major barriers from both technology and cultural point of view.