Hierarchical modelling of complex material and energy flow in manufacturing systems

Over the past decades, the economic and environmental soundness of manufacturing systems are often questioned because of the large consumption of energy and primary materials. In order to investigate potential opportunities towards achieving the material and energy efficiency in these systems, it is essential to model these flows and associated complexity in detail. An isolated consideration of individual processes which in themselves are comprised of sub-processes is not a sufficient approach. To obtain a reasonable level of detail from the system, hierarchical structure of energy and material consumers in the system is required. In this paper a simulation based approach is presented to model energy and material flows. This approach considers hierarchical structure of energy and material consumers within the system. It can be served as a base to identify hotspots and to assess the effectiveness of retrofitting exercise through what-if scenarios. An industrial case study is used to demonstrate the applicability and the validity of the proposed approach. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.