Energy efficiency of machine tools: extending the perspective

Due to increasing energy costs and the environmental impact of energy generation, energy consumption has become a major topic in manufacturing in the last years. Thereby, the energy consumption of production machines as interaction of different components is not static but rather highly dynamic depending on the operation mode. Hence, as a prerequisite for optimizing energy efficiency on the machine level it is crucial to understand the energy consumption behavior. Analyzing certain energy profiles of production machines is a common way in research nowadays to identify main drivers of consumption and derive optimizing measures. However, whereas only focusing on electricity as input variable these analyses do not provide the full picture of energy flows within the machines and neglect existing coherences and significant energy losses. Therefore a holistic perspective on the system machine tool considering all relevant input and output flows (eg heat, compressed air, coolant) and supporting equipment (eg filter systems) with all interdependencies is necessary to avoid problem shifting and enable the identification of further optimization potentials. Against this background, based on an overview of recent research and own findings/measurements the paper shows the necessity and potentials of an extended perspective on machine tool energy consumption.