Saving energy in industry without expensive investments in production facilities
Software-driven energy planning in production with ORSOFT Manufacturing Workbench
Energy savings in industrial production environments has mainly been seen as part of process control and process engineering so far. Applying the ORSOFT Manufacturing Workbench opens another way of looking at this topic. By anchoring energy objectives in production planning, immediate reductions in energy consumption can be realised. Even when keeping energy consumption levels, a straightforward in-line production and energy planning may result in substantial energy cost savings. And all this without the need for investment in the production equipment.
Already during production planning, potentials for absolute energy savings can be created through
- optimising production sequences,
- minimising unproductive, energetically unfavourable buffer times and
- optimising shutdowns and start-ups of semi-continuous plants by means of seamless planning.
Energy and cost savings in industry: taking full advantage of your energy master agreements and reduce costs sustainably
A clever plant management may result in energy cost saving even though the energy consumption cannot be reduced. Thus, penalty costs are avoided by adhering to an agreed energy plan. By always (and constantly) reaching the agreed maximum consumption as much as possible, the paid power is actually being used. It allows to schedule consumption-intensive production mainly to the night hours with lower energy prices.
ORSOFT Manufacturing Workbench | Advantages of energy planning in energy intensive production environments
- Through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), energy-optimized production slots can be identified and plans may be scheduled based on key figures with regard to capacity, material availability and energy
- Display of electrical energy consumption of orders and resources
- Visualization of electrical power levels
- Definition of power resource(s) with specification of the possible maximum power consumption (customer-specific settings required)
- Energy consumption is visualized as a resource with limited capacity
- Energy overloads due to scheduled orders are highlighted
- All model and planning data are stored centrally and maintained in SAP ERP and SAP S/4HANA
Software-optimised energy planning already successfully implemented in production
This method has been successfully applied to metal smelting and other energy-intensive production processes. A significant reduction in energy consumption and energy costs has been achieved. In addition, the findings resulting from the planning could determine future plant dimensioning.
