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Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "F2: Distributed Energy System".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 October 2023) | Viewed by 12194

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Aijun Liu

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Guest Editor

Department of Management Engineering, School of Economics & Management, Xidian University, Xi’an, China
Interests: management decisions; complex manufacturing system optimization; modeling

Prof. Dr. Mingbao Cheng

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Guest Editor

School of Business, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China
Interests: supply chain management; scheduling model optimization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

With the transformation and upgrading of economic development, the problem of global energy consumption has become increasingly severe. Adjusting the energy structure and improving the efficiency of energy utilization is an important measure to solve the increasingly severe energy problem, which has received extensive attention from governments around the world. On the one hand, the government's increasingly stringent environmental protection laws have caused tremendous pressure on manufacturing companies; on the other hand, with the continuous development of the economy, consumers' awareness of energy conservation has gradually increased, and demand for resource-saving and environmentally friendly products is gradually increasing. To meet government environmental laws and consumer demands, manufacturing companies urgently need to retrofit existing production and operational processes to conserve energy and reduce environmental harm. The concept of sustainable supply chain production and operation came into being. It aims to improve resource utilization efficiency and reduce environmental impact as much as possible in the process from product design to raw material procurement, production, transportation, warehousing, recycling, and remanufacturing.

Therefore, this Special Issue focuses on optimizing sustainable supply chain manufacturing systems to address energy saving decisions at different product life cycle stages. We welcome research and review papers from leading researchers and practitioners in academia and industry.

Dr. Aijun Liu
Prof. Dr. Mingbao Cheng
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

sustainable supply chain management and decision making
production operation optimization management
energy systems and environmental governance
energy saving technology R&D and selection
market competition and resource allocation
application of game theory methods
new technology-driven management decisions
new theories and new methods for system optimization
E-commerce and transaction decisions
energy and complex systems management

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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25 pages, 4335 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Value-Stream Mapping as a Tool to Improve Production and Energy Consumption: A Case Study of a Manufacturer of Industrial Hand Tools

by Mariusz Salwin, Karolina Pszczółkowska, Michał Pałęga and Andrzej Kraslawski

Energies 2023, 16(21), 7292; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16217292 - 27 Oct 2023

Viewed by 1886

Abstract

Manufacturing companies strive to minimize costs, maximize efficiency and improve production quality, which is crucial for market competitiveness. As companies grow and technologies evolve, increasingly complex challenges arise in effectively managing and improving production processes. One of the tools that helps companies improve their processes is value-stream mapping (VSM). The article focuses on the use of VSM in the production process of hand tools used in the construction industry. The paper presents selected aspects of the optimization of the production process using the mapping concept. The research identified and characterized the most important processes occurring in the production of hand tools used in construction. Then, basic data on the value stream was collected and the need for improvements and actions aimed at optimizing the value stream was indicated. Financial results, key performance indicators (KPIs), machine operation and reliability, energy consumption in the production process and overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) before and after improvements were calculated. The analysis carried out allowed for the optimization of the production process in terms of economy and energy consumption. As a result of the improvements, the productivity of injection-molding workers increased by 9.4% and the overall equipment efficiency by 18%. The machine availability rate increased from 70.3% to 85.2%. After implementing the improvements, the company is able to save approximately 295,488 kWh annually, i.e., approximately EUR 53,253, while 1 kWh currently costs producers in Poland EUR 0.18. The conclusions and results described in the paper constitute a solid basis for further development of an improvement project for the selected company. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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23 pages, 2198 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Research on Financing Strategy of Green Energy-Efficient Supply Chain Based on Blockchain Technology

by Di Wang, Daozhi Zhao and Fang Chen

Energies 2023, 16(7), 2985; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16072985 - 24 Mar 2023

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1539

Abstract

With the development of ecological economics, energy-saving green energy chain management has been a wide concern of academia and industries. However, the relatively high cost of green investment makes manufacturers face the problem of financial constraints. On this basis, because the green level information of products is proprietary to manufacturers, manufacturers will lie about the green level of products in order to improve their profits out of the principle of profit maximization. As a result, banks cannot obtain the true green level of products, reducing the benefits of the green energy-efficient supply chain system and making the market of green products volatile. In view of this, blockchain technology is introduced in this paper to improve customer’s product green level sensitivity and obtain lower green credit interest rates from banks. In this paper, a green supply chain financing model based on blockchain technology was constructed under the condition of green information misreporting, and it is compared with the benchmark without blockchain technology. Research shows that the adoption of blockchain can achieve Pareto improvement of green supply chain members. In addition, manufacturers have an incentive to adopt blockchain if the cost of blockchain investment falls below a certain threshold, and consumer green sensitivity increases below that threshold. We compared the profits of green manufacturers with those of retailers and the total emissions of manufacturers. The results show that: (1) When the financing intensity exceeds a certain value, there is an optimal coverage of green financing to ensure that the profit target of manufacturers, the profit target of retailers and the emission reduction target are achieved simultaneously. (2) The adoption of blockchain can achieve Pareto improvement of green energy supply chain members. The actual data of green transformation of Jinyuan New Technology Company were cited. Through calculation, it was found that green transformation can reduce the emissions of enterprises. When the financing intensity is in a certain range, the profits of manufacturers and retailers can be maximized, and the emission reduction degree is the highest. Thus, the practicability and reliability of this model were proved. (3) Manufacturers have an incentive to adopt blockchain if the cost of blockchain investment falls below a certain threshold, and consumer green sensitivity increases below that threshold. The research results of this paper provide solutions for enterprises with limited funds for green transformation and provide a theoretical basis for the government to formulate emission reduction incentive mechanism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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13 pages, 2719 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Pricing Decision Models of the Dual Channel Supply Chain with Service Level and Return

by Xuelong Zhang, Huili Xu, Chenhui Zhang, Shuang Xiao and Ying Zhang

Energies 2022, 15(23), 9237; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15239237 - 6 Dec 2022

Viewed by 1155

Abstract

The interests of upstream, midstream, downstream companies and consumers in the supply chain are jointly affected by service levels and returns. Improving service levels can increase market demand and improve market position, as well as reduce return rates. But the increase in service level will bring an increase in service cost. How to balance the service cost and return cost through pricing decision, so that the profit of supply chain members can be improved, is the problem studied in this paper. In this paper, we consider the effect of service level of network channel on consumers’ return behavior in the context of manufacturer’s dual-channel supply chain when dual channels provide services at the same time, and discuss the effect of service level and return rate on pricing decision of dual-channel supply chain. It was found that return behavior can stimulate manufacturers to improve service levels and increase overall supply chain profits. The higher the return rate in the network channel, the greater the benefits from improved service levels by the manufacturer and the less detrimental to retailers’ returns. This study enriches the research on pricing decisions in dual-channel supply chains, increases the motivation of merchants to improve service levels, and has some guiding implications for supply chain members to develop price and service strategies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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20 pages, 758 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Supplier Evaluation Considering Green Production Based on Probabilistic Linguistic Information

by Shuailei Yuan, Aijun Liu, Zengxian Li, Yun Yang, Jing Liu and Yue Su

Energies 2022, 15(19), 7420; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15197420 - 10 Oct 2022

Viewed by 1109

Abstract

The evaluation of manufacturing component suppliers is focused on economic indicators, with insufficient emphasis on green indicators and no consideration of the correlation between indicators. Firstly, indicators related to green production are incorporated into the supplier evaluation system. Then, for the problem that attributes in decision making can be divided into different categories and there are interrelationships between attributes of the same category, a multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) method based on the partitioned Maclaurin symmetric mean operator (PMSM) is proposed. Finally, the proposed MADM method was applied to the evaluation of component suppliers considering green production. Comparing popular decision methods with the newly proposed method for validation, it was demonstrated that the proposed multi-attribute decision method is highly flexible and versatile. Furthermore, the newly proposed aggregation operator can not only handle the correlation between multiple attributes, but also be converted to other general aggregation operators through parameter adjustment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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23 pages, 2536 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Equilibrium Optimization with Multi-Energy-Efficiency-Grade Products: Government and Market Perspective

by Qiuyun Zhu, Xiaoyang Zhou, Aijun Liu, Chong Gao, Lei Xu, Fan Zhao, Ding Zhang and Benjamin Lev

Energies 2022, 15(19), 7376; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15197376 - 8 Oct 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1344

Abstract

This paper studies the multi-level supply chain network equilibrium optimization problem of multi-energy-efficiency products under different government subsidies and demand scales. In the equilibrium optimization problem, manufacturers determine the production volume of the energy-saving products; retailers decide the transaction volume with manufacturers, distribution volume for markets, and marketing efforts of energy-saving products; markets determine the transaction price. Firstly, the optimal decision-making behaviors of manufacturers, retailers, and markets are described. Simultaneously, the global optimization problem is transformed into a finite-dimensional variational inequality formulation. Then, the equilibrium conditions of the whole supply chain network are derived by the Euler method. Finally, a case study verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method. Interestingly, we found that energy-saving subsidies and demand scales were negatively correlated with the marketing efforts of the subsidized retailers for high energy-efficient products and positively correlated with the marketing efforts of non-subsidized retailers for high energy-efficient products in the same market; the development of retailers in the same market tended to be consistent, and the differentiation of the demand scale eliminated the retailers without a competitive advantage. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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16 pages, 4027 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Path Planning for UAV Based on Improved PRM

by Weimin Li, Lei Wang, Awei Zou, Jingcao Cai, Huijuan He and Tielong Tan

Energies 2022, 15(19), 7267; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15197267 - 3 Oct 2022

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 1827

Abstract

In this paper, an improved probabilistic roadmap (IPRM) algorithm is proposed to solve the energy consumption problem of multi-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) path planning with an angle. Firstly, in order to simulate the real terrain environment, a mathematical model was established; secondly, an energy consumption model was established; then, the sampling space of the probabilistic roadmap (PRM) algorithm was optimized to make the obtained path more explicit and improve the utilization rate in space and time; then, the sampling third-order B-spline curve method was used to curve the rotation angle to make the path smoother and the distance shorter. Finally, the results of the improved genetic algorithm (IGA), PRM algorithm and IPRM algorithm were compared through a simulation. The data analysis shows that the IGA has significant advantages over other algorithms in some aspects, and can be well applied to the path planning of UAVs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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Review

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16 pages, 1522 KiB

Open AccessReview

Review of Green Supply-Chain Management Diffusion in the Context of Energy Transformation

by Yan Xu, Aijun Liu, Zengxian Li, Jiaxin Li, Jiamin Xiong and Peng Fan

Energies 2023, 16(2), 686; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16020686 - 6 Jan 2023

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2099

Abstract

Against the background of continuously rising energy carbon emissions, accelerated energy transformation in developed countries, and increased international attention to energy security, there is still a large amount of energy consumption in the manufacturing industry. Promoting the diffusion of green supply-chain management is becoming a powerful tool to support energy transformation and energy conservation and emission reduction in the manufacturing industry. Based on this, we first conducted a scientific metrological analysis of 4960 articles in relevant fields in the Web of Science database, presenting the research status of green supply-chain management diffusion in the context of energy transformation. Second, we identified factors that affect the implementation of green supply-chain management, and analyzed the diffusion path of green supply-chain management among enterprises. Finally, based on the energy situation, enterprise operation, and implementation of environmental protection laws and regulations in Shaanxi Province, China, we determined the current situation, obstacles, and development direction of green supply-chain management diffusion of enterprises in the context of energy transformation. The research found that: at this stage, there are still some deficiencies in the research on the mechanism of green supply-chain management in the internal communication of enterprises; in the future, the diffusion of green supply-chain management can be further developed around social performance and energy transformation technology; and we can help energy transformation by strengthening policy guidance and assisting enterprise reform. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Saving Manufacturing System Optimization)

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