Energy value stream: Increasing energy efficiency in production

In many companies, no information is available on the different types and amounts of energy they use in manufacturing. To obtain precise information on internal energy consumption and systematically develop improvement measures, the value stream method, which has been successfully used to optimize industrial production over many years, has been enhanced with the perspective of energy consumption. Firstly, the energy value stream analysis captures the production processes and records the energy consumed by each process step. This makes energy consumption transparent and attributable and provides product- and process-related performance indicators. Secondly, energy value stream design applies eight design guidelines to derive measures for increasing energy efficiency. These guidelines build on each other in a systematic way and are used to principally challenge the existing production flow. The design section concludes by defining the improvement measures. Finally, the measures are put into practice and the procedure for a continuous enhancement of energy efficiency is integrated into the business strategy.