Investigating the relationship between energy consumption and overall equipment effectiveness for improving manufacturing systems' productivity: An application in the thermoforming process

In the last decades, energy efficiency of production systems has become a key concern in several industry fields, due to the increased energy costs and the associated environmental impacts. Since research and development effort across all industries are driven by the goal of improving the productivity of industrial process, many authors investigated on the relation between energy consumption and production level. In particular, previous studies use regression analysis to predict energy required by the system, through a monitoring and targeting approach. The present paper enriches over these techniques by developing a model that takes into account also the impact of single overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) losses on energy consumption. Our analysis provides a better understanding of a system energy efficiency, useful to achieve a more effective control and fostering a continuous improvement of manufacturing performance. The proposed approach, implemented for the analysis of a thermoforming process in a real plant, is applicable to any case where the energy necessary for the functioning of a production machinery is considerable compared to the whole plant consumption

An empirical approach to investigate the relationship between Overall Equipment Effectiveness and Energy consumptions: an application in the manufacturing field

In the last decades energy efficiency of production systems has become a key concern in several industry fields, due to the increased energy costs and the associated environmental impacts. Furthermore, the role of equipment efficiency has lately occupied a relevant place, due to the importance of equipment performances in an optimized system. The fundamental aspect is that the two dimensions are strictly related, and it is possible to better understand complex systems by deeply comprehending this connection. With these assumption, in this paper the authors want to investigate through the analysis of a real manufacturing process how the OEE-related loss have an impact on equipment energy consumptions

A model for the bio-mechanical stimulus in bone remodelling as a diffusive signalling agent for bones reconstructed with bio-resorbable grafts

Bone remodelling is a self-adaptive process occurring in bone living tissue to optimize its mechanical response to environmental demands. Some cells, namely osteocytes, monitor this response and communicate with other cells, osteoblasts, and osteoclasts, in charge of synthesizing or reabsorbing solid bone in order to acquire the mechanical strength required for bone functioning. In this paper, we employ a diffusive model of a mechanical stimulus to describe at the organ level the mechanisms involved in the transduction of the information and activation of the remodelling process. This stimulus is produced after a bone deformation, and thus we assume it depends on strain energy density. The system that we analyse is a bone sample with a resorbable graft. Mainly, we focus on the interaction between the two components of the system. From a mechanical point of view, we consider a mixture of two solid phases described by a poro-viscoelastic model. The results show a general behaviour that matches the expected outcomes and confirms the usefulness of the proposed model

An empirical approach to investigate the relationship between Overall Equipment Effectiveness and Energy consumptions: an application in the manufacturing field

In the last decades energy efficiency of production systems has become a key concern in several industry fields, due to the increased energy costs and the associated environmental impacts. Furthermore, the role of equipment efficiency has lately occupied a relevant place, due to the importance of equipment performances in an optimized system. The fundamental aspect is that the two dimensions are strictly related, and it is possible to better understand complex systems by deeply comprehending this connection. With these assumption, in this paper the authors want to investigate through the analysis of a real manufacturing process how the OEE-related loss have an impact on equipment energy consumptions