Towards Sustainable Manufacturing: An Approach Evaluating Energy Reduction Techniques for System Improvement

Manufacturing industries are facing major challenges due to economic globalization, increased energy costs, etc.  Capital investments are highly dependent on the economy and driven by customer demands.  Hitherto, a variety of technologies have been developed for energy efficiency improvement, such as those developed by the Department of Energy, which have been used for industrial system assessment.  By these technologies, system performance improvement opportunities may be identified, such as those through equipment/process modification, control adjustment, workforce training, system management improvement, etc.  However, how to quantify the sustainability performance of the technologies and how to use them in a systematic way is still a challenge.

In this paper, we introduce an energy technology integration approach for sustainable manufacturing.  By this approach, the known energy reduction technologies will be assessed quantitatively by a set of suitable sustainability metrics.  The process system to be improved will be assessed by the same set of sustainability metrics as well.  The assessment results will be analyzed together and the most suitable set of energy reduction technologies will be selected to improve process system’s sustainability to the expected level, for which the investment will be still under budget limit.  The introduced approach can provide a scientific guidance to industry sustainability enhancement.  The efficacy of the approach will be demonstrated through case studies on electroplating systems.