A metamodeling approach for the simulation of energy and media demand for the brewing industry

Abstract

Due to economic, social and technical trends, as well as rising energy costs, the food and beverage industry is challenged to work energy‐efficiently. Small and medium‐sized enterprises in particular lack of both time and knowledge to identify and implement suitable energy efficiency measures. With the help of simulation, decision‐makers can pursue numerous approaches and make well‐founded decisions. A metamodel based on four modeling pillars (physical‐, process‐, article/recipe‐, and production plan model) for an entire production system concerning the forecast of energy and media consumption is presented. The metamodel is implemented in a user‐friendly modeling tool, which enables a simple hybrid modeling without prequalification of the user. Subsequently, a standardized data exchange file, as basis for a simulation model, is generated. For validation, various use cases were modeled and the tool was validated using a systematic test. In addition, two simulation studies were performed to show that the presented approach provides the opportunity to create a holistic model in terms of forecasting energy and media consumption.

Simulation of Energy and Media Demand of Beverage Bottling Plants by Automatic Model Generation

“…Since it contains all simulation-relevant parameters and information and is clearly structured, this could also be implemented in other simulation environments. The combination of the modeling editor and the simulation environment opens up a great flexibility with regard to the mapping of production systems and has already been demonstrated [48]. Compared to a time-consuming manual parameter determination and simulation model creation, which can take several days, depending on its complexity, the present models could be created within a few hours using the modeling editor, and an executable simulation model including all aspects could be generated.…”

“…Since modeling is one of the biggest barriers for SMEs, a modeling editor, presented by Bär et al [48], was used. The editor was developed with special attention to a user-friendly and simple application to enable modeling for users without a specific pre-qualification.…”

“…The modeling depth of the editor is to the unit level (e.g., the filling machine). This is mainly related to the scope of the required parameters as well as to the complexity and accuracy of the models and is sufficiently discussed by Bär et al [48]. If the batch-oriented production process is modeled, the process model, which describes the energy and media consumption behavior at the process operation level, is used.…”

“…The beverage bottling plant investigated in this work was modeled in the described editor (Figure 3) and is a more detailed version, as already presented by Bär et al [48]. The main differences are due to the representation of further units, such as inspection machines, decorker, etc., which could be examined within the scope of the additional data acquisition.…”

“…Figure 1 shows an overview of the approach in its major steps. For a simple and fast modeling of complex production systems, an already presented modeling concept, implemented in a user-friendly software, was used [48]. With an extensive database, it was possible to model and parameterize beverage bottling plants with regard to the physical plant, the articles, and the production plan.…”