Energy Planning of Manufacturing Systems with Methods-Energy Measurement (MEM) and Multi-Domain Simulation Approach

Energy costs play a decisive role in the operation costs of automotive production companies. Therefore, energy planning in an early conception and planning stage becomes an important topic. This is because the early conception and planning stage has the greatest potential to influence the energy consumption of manufacturing technologies since about 70-80 % of the energy costs are committed during this stage. However, lifetime cost and specifically energy consumption are currently not a determining factor at this stage. The reason is that the prediction of energy costs for complex manufacturing systems are challenging. Previous research approaches in the area of energy planning are limited to detailed planned production. A standardized approach to determine the energy consumption rates at an early stage does not exist. In this context, the EffiPLAS project has therefore proposed to solve this challenge. The aim of this project is to develop a Methods-Energy Measurement approach with elementary energy elements to support the planning process at an early stage, and to develop a modular simulation model for calculating the energy consumption of industrial robots, which complements the energy prediction. In this paper, the basic concept of elementary energy units and their value determination techniques is presented, and the simulation model is outlined. The developed approach will help to predict the prospective energy consumption of complex production equipment so that energy costs can be accounted for in an improved manner within a life-cycle costing comparative analyses.