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Climate change mitigation, the goal of reducing CO2 emissions, more stringent regulations and the increment in energy costs have pushed researchers to study energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Manufacturing systems are large energy consumers and are thus responsible for huge greenhouse gas emissions; for these reasons, many studies have focused on this topic recently. This review aims to summarize the most important papers on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources in manufacturing systems published in the last fifteen years. The works are grouped together, considering the system typology, i.e., manufacturing system subclasses (single machine, flow shop, job shop, etc.) or the assembly line, the developed energy-saving policies and the implementation of the renewable energy sources in the studied contexts. A description of the main approaches used in the analyzed papers was discussed. The conclusion reports the main findings of the review and suggests future directions for the researchers in the integration of renewable energy in the manufacturing systems consumption models.

One of the most promising approaches to reduce the amount of energy consumed in manufacturing systems is the switch off policy. This policy reduces the energy consumed when the machines are in the idle state. The main weakness of this policy is the reduction in the production rate of the manufacturing systems. The works proposed in the literature do not consider the design of the production lines for the introduction of switch off policies. This work proposes a design model for production lines that include a targeted imbalance among the workstations to cause designed idle time. The switch-off policy introduced in such designed production lines allows for a reduction in the energy consumed with any production rate loss. Simulation tests are conducted to verify the benefits of switch off policies in production lines designed for its. The simulation results show that the proposed line design allows for a reduction in energy consumption, with a defined loss in the throughput. The application of switch-off policies in the proposed flow line leads to a significant reduction in the energy used in unproductive states controlling the production loss.

PurposeThis paper proposes a model based on minority game (MG) theory to support the decision-making regarding the efficient allocation and exploitation of resources/services among the partners of a cloud manufacturing (CMfg) system. CMfg system is a new manufacturing paradigm to share manufacturing capabilities and resources on a cloud platform. The use of a decision model to organize and manage the resources and services provided by the autonomous participants of a CMfg has crucial relevance for the system's effectiveness and efficiency.Design/methodology/approachThis research proposes a noncooperation model based on MG theory. The MG is designed to make decisions on the use of resources/services among the partners of CMfg with private information. A simulation environment was developed to test the efficiency of the proposed decision model. Moreover, an ideal decision model with complete information among the partners was used as a benchmark model.FindingsThe simulation results show how the application of the proposed MG model outperforms the MG model usually proposed in the literature. In particular, the proposed decision model based on private information has an efficiency closer to the ideal model with complete information among the partners of a CMfg.Originality/valueThis paper advances knowledge about the application of MG in the field of CMfg system. The proposed decision-making model based on MG is a promising approach to help enterprises, and especially small and medium enterprises, to participate in CMfg initiatives and to develop their business.

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In recent years, the production of renewable energy has increased continuously to reduce fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and to increase energy efficiency. The challenge of industries is to integrate renewable energy systems into the existing power system of manufacturing industries. In the energy flexibility approach, the manufacturing energy demand is aligned with renewable energy availability, to improve the use of the renewable energy source. This paper aims to investigate a manufacturing system supplied by a photovoltaic plant coupled with a battery storage system. A basic storage model has been developed and implemented to pursue this issue. The model is applied in the simplified case of a manufacturing system composed of a cutting numerical control machine, which can adapt the cutting speed to align the power needed to the power supplied by the photovoltaic plant. However, the model can be extended to realistic production cases characterized by complex systems as long as the time evolution of energy consumptions are known in detail. The introduction of battery storage allows reducing the cutting speed fluctuations, improving the cutting life derived from the fatigue effect. This solution reduces the costs of the machine and improves the forecasting of the means needed for the manufacturing system. Finally, a detailed analysis of greenhouse gas reduction is discussed.

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