While the price of electricity in Japan is increasing continuously, the plastic industry consumes considerable electric power for injection molding. The cost of electricity must be reduced to maintain product prices. Some strategies have been proposed to reduce the cost of electricity at the production stage, one of which is to reduce the contract electric energy amount with an electric company while increasing the facility operation rate and reducing excess power. This study proposes a method to minimize the electricity cost of injection molding lines by using the simulation for injection molding lines with an approximation solution. The simulated annealing method was used as the approximation solution. Based on the proposed method, numerous case studies were performed, and the results were analyzed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.