Industry 4.0 and Energy-Efficient Production Planning

In recent decades, researchers have directed their attention towards increasing energy-efficiency, due to the growth in worldwide energy consumption. In particular, the energy consumption of the industrial sector largely originates from manufacturing industries, and it can be reduced by either using more efficient technologies and equipment and/or through improved planning and control of energy used in infrastructure and technical services [Seow and Rahimifard, 2011]. The aim of energy-efficient production planning and control models is to compute production plans that do not only take account of traditional production planning objectives, such as the minimization of inventory holding cost, setup cost, or total completion time, but also of energy-related objectives, such as the minimization of energy consumption, energy cost, or energy-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [Biel and Glock, 2016]. Specifically, the development of 4.0 and smart manufacturing technologies has made it possible to develop tools that are able to decide (or support decisions) with respect to the operating conditions of plants. Thanks to the use of data acquisition tools, it is now possible to record energy consumption, of great importance for energy-intensive companies, and elaborate on scheduling that minimizes consumption by considering the state of any given system. In order to do this, it is necessary to develop algorithms and data processing systems that solve this type of problem and offer optimal solutions.

The link between the concepts of Industry 4.0 and energy-efficient production planning is the focus of this Special Issue.

From these considerations, some questions arise and need to be answered. What is the relationship between Industry 4.0 solutions and the implementation of energy-efficient production planning? Can Industry 4.0 technologies be leveraged to enhance energy-efficient production planning? What is, if any, the actual gap in technologies that limits the implementation of energy-efficient production planning?

Our aim with this Special Issue is to encourage research that helps answer some of these questions by means of review studies or research papers providing evidence of the relationship between Industry 4.0 technologies and energy-efficient production planning.

References

• Seow, Rahimifard, 2011. Framework for modelling energy consumption within manufacturing system. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 258-264.
• Biel, K., Glock, C.H., (2016). Systematic literature review of decision support models for energy-efficient production planning. Computers and industrial engineering 101, 243-225.

Dr. Ivan Ferretti
Dr. Beatrice Marchi
Guest Editors

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