Title: Energy consumption in relation with buffer design during the pre-build stages of manufacturing system

Authors: Usman Ghani; Nadeem Ahmed Sheikh

Addresses: Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, LE11 3TU, UK ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Abstract: Most machines in an assembly line are not working on equal cycle times, therefore, the power consumption rating could be of interest, if a buffer is present, eliminated, oversized or undersized during the conception phase. Such pre build analysis is made with the help of emulation of machine in virtual engineering environment. The available useful engineering data, from the virtual environment can be used in a planning and decision support tool such as discrete event simulation. Moreover, machine control is enabled to accommodate the variations in production demands, particularly for the energy consumption when it is physically available on the shop floor. A method is suggested to rate the machine in virtual engineering and then fine tune the cycle time in discrete event simulation to articulate the inventory within the mutually deployed stations. The method has been practically applied and tested in an automotive case successfully.

Keywords: productivity; manufacturing systems; machine layout; virtual simulation; energy consumption; buffer design; pre-build stages; virtual engineering; machine control; production demand; cycle time; discrete event simulation; automotive manufacturing; assembly lines.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2014.066702

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2014 Vol.28 No.4/5/6, pp.363 - 379

Received: 11 Dec 2013
Accepted: 18 Jun 2014
Published online: 11 Jan 2015 *

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