Energy sensitive digital planning and simulation

In order to stay competitive in a globalized market, manufacturers of investment goods and high grade consumer goods have to increase efficiency, both for their products and for their processes. Consequently, resource and energy efficient production is a topic of highest interest in industry and science. Selected topic related to research activities and findings of the large-scale cooperative research project InnoCaT® are discussed in this paper with a focus on factory and process planning as well as ICT concepts. Specific planning tools for components and parts, manufacturing processes, logistics, infrastructure, media supplies and factory buildings have to be conjoined in order to enable a reliable prediction and global optimization of energy consumption. This paper discusses approaches to holistic planning of energy efficient production facilities in car plants. For this purpose, a concept to a domain-spanning exchange of energy related information as well as an energy related extension of a discrete event simulation tool are presented.