Cyber-physical production network for energy-efficient manufacturing: A framework

Abstract

Energy-efficiency has become an integral aspect of sustainable manufacturing. As manufacturing activities become increasingly distributed while connected in the new era of manufacturing -Industry 4.0, energy-efficient manufacturing (E2M) strategies and methodologies should be implemented in a global production network, especially in an Industry 4.0 environment. The research work reported in this paper attempts to develop a feasible solution to implementing energy-efficient manufacturing in such an environment by proposing a technical framework, integrated with the developed platform, MCloud, to facilitate energy-efficient production. The overall technical framework is discussed in detail, particularly, the proposed E2M module and two-round communication procedure. Feature-based technology was adopted in process planning to assess technical capability and energy-consumption of connected cyber-physical systems. MCloud allows the connected cyber-physical systems to use local energy consumption models for energy assessment. A case study was presented for collaboratively perform a manufacturing job, proving that the enhanced MCloud can organize customized production activities based on energy-saving needs in an Industry 4.0 environment.