Intelligent energy based status identification as a platform for improvement of machine tool efficiency and effectiveness.

The combination of increasing energy costs, corporate image concerns, and environmental legislation is driving a transition towards energy and resource efficiency within the manufacturing sector. Developing a more comprehensive understanding of how energy is consumed within manufacturing facilities is now a core component of research efforts aiming to advance industrial energy efficiency. A variety of different research teams have proposed approaches and methodologies that attempt to quantify the energy consumed at a unit process level however, the application of intelligent energy sensors that aim to support this goal is a topic that has received very little attention within the literature. This paper presents a novel nonintrusive intelligent energy sensor that can infer the operational status of a machine tool from information contained within the power signals recorded at the machine tools main incomer. Researchers within the literature agree that obtaining transparency on the status of a machine tool during machining will motivate improvements that can reduce the energetic impacts of machining and therefore improve the overall energy efficiency of manufacturing. The research work presented in this article reveals that the information available at the machine tools electrical service entry is capable of identifying individual component activations in addition to the overall operational status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]