Energy flow simulation for manufacturing systems

Producing companies externally demand at least primary energy sources like gas or oil and typically electricity for running their production. Additionally, transformed from these sources, internally energy carriers like compressed air or process heat (e.g. steam) are of major importance. Thereby the actual cumulative demand of all types of energy for the whole manufacturing system is naturally not static but rather highly dynamic depending on the actual state and interactions of production machines as well as technical building services. Against this background this paper presents a simulation approach which is able to realistically consider relevant energy flows in manufacturing systems. This enables an integrated evaluation of typical production target criteria (e.g. throughput times, utilization rates) and energy driven variables based on appropriate models for realistic cost and environmental impact evaluation.