Energy-sensitive control strategies for discrete parts manufacturing

Rising demand of energy caused by emergent economies, decreasing oil stocks and the intended nuclear phase-out in some industrial countries lead to new problems related to energy supply within the agreed time and quantity. Since availability of energy has a dramatic influence on production, energy has to be considered as a process prerequisite instead of production-related overhead topics, as usually done. Prospective considerations in MES and ERP systems will need to treat energy as a limited resource just like machine capacity and time. Hence, both products and processes will compete for energy. This paper discusses selected production control tasks, methods and strategies for the discrete part production. It aims at identifying the extent to which energy features can be implemented next to established logistic goals. Based on first research activities, new approaches were derived in order to develop tools for an energy-sensitive production control focussing on limited capacity of production resources.