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Machining workshop is a widely distributed manufacturing system that consumes massive energy in a low efficiency. In recent years, the increasing pressure from energy price and environmental directive have forced machinery manufacturers to address energy efficiency monitoring and management to improve economic benefits and environmental performance. However, due to the complicated energy flow and dynamic energy changes of the machining workshop, machinery manufacturers still lack an effective method to monitor and manage the energy efficiency in a practical manner. To this end, this paper proposes an energy efficiency monitoring and management system with the support of the newly emerging Internet of Things (IoT) technology. Firstly, the energy characteristics and energy efficiency indicators of the machining workshop are analyzed and defined. Then the framework of the IoT based energy efficiency monitoring and management system is proposed. The key approaches for energy efficiency monitoring and management are then illustrated. Finally, an industrial application is demonstrated to validate the effectiveness and benefits of the proposed system. With the application of the proposed system, potential opportunities for energy consumption decrement and energy efficiency improvement can be identified. Machinery manufacturers can easily reduce energy consumption and energy cost by managing the machining process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Increasing pressures from energy price and environmental directive force the manufacturing enterprises to consider and initiate the implementation of energy assessment and energy quota practices to improve both their economic benefit and environmental performance. Against this background this paper presents an integrated method to evaluate energy efficiency in machining workshop. The integrated features of the assessing method are reflected in three aspects: (1) In this evaluation system, the energy profile of machining workshop is viewed from the machine tool layer, manufacturing unit layer, task layer and workshop layer to reveal the energy performance inside the workshop completely. (2) The assessing indexes for each layer include both effective energy indicator and Specific Energy Consumption (SEC) indicator. (3) An integrated calculation method of energy indexes is introduced, which combines off-line experiments with theoretical formulas. To verify its feasibility and validity, the assessment method is applied to a small machining workshop. The assessing results showed that the assessment method is helpful in providing support for machining scheme selection, energy saving discovery and energy quota allocation in plant, which has significance in practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]