Towards Data-Driven Sustainable Machining: Combining MTConnect Production Data and Discrete Event Simulation

Abstract

Recently there has been an increased focus on the environmental aspects of the manufacturing industry across the world. Boeing and NIST have studied the incorporation of Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) parameters into Discrete Event Simulation (DES) as a means to analyze sustainable performance in the manufacturing area. Accurate analysis of manufacturing processes using Discrete Event Simulation requires detailed CNC production data. Using MTConnect, production LCA data from Boeing shop floor machine tools was acquired and was used to develop Discrete Event Simulation models. We will discuss our implementation, and analyze results of incorporating shop floor LCA data directly in DES models.

Review of simulation-based life cycle assessment in manufacturing industry

“…As all these supporting systems consume energy and therefore have emissions, they must be specified for the detailed calculation of LCA impacts. Of the reviewed studies, 54% do not consider any contributions from supporting systems, while others consider various support systems, such as auxiliary materials (Bengtsson, Michaloski, Proctor, Shao, & Venkatesh, 2010;Paju et al, 2010), air compressors (Heinemann et al, 2014;Löfgren & Tillman, 2011;A. Sproedt, Plehn, Schönsleben, & Herrmann, 2015), and shielding gas and welding rods (Andersson, Skoogh, & Johansson, 2011).…”

“…Table 4 presents the data sources used in the reviewed studies. For production-related data, most studies use a mixed data collection approach in which measured data are used whenever available, and some studies even use real-time monitoring for data collection (Bengtsson et al, 2010;Mani, Johansson, Lyons, Sriram, & Ameta, 2013). For data that are difficult to obtain from field measurements, historical data are often used.…”

“…Concerning the impact assessment, 71% of the studies report the impact in terms of climate change, though most of them only calculate the kilograms of CO 2 equivalent based on electricity consumption. A few exceptions can be found, namely, three studies (Bengtsson et al, 2010;Heilala, Paju, Montonen, Hentula, & Heikkilä, 2010;Kim et al, 2015) that consider NOx when performing impact assessment in terms of climate change. However, other on-site emissions are often ignored.…”

“…Moreover, six studies link the inventory and impact assessment with economic valuation, the monetary indicators they have addressed including eco-efficiency (Alexander Sproedt, Plehn, & Hertz, 2013;A. Sproedt et al, 2015), environmental activity based cost (Andersson, et al, 2011) and energy/material related cost (Bengtsson et al, 2010;Heilala et al, 2010;Paju et al, 2010).…”

Decision support for sustainable manufacturing using decision guidance query language

“…The information on efficient use of machines and systems in the production facility (including use of consumables such as water and fluids) will be valuable to designers of tools, processes, and systems to develop sustainable manufacturing systems and facilities. Bengtsson et al (2010) developed a case study of using MTConnect to acquire Boeing production data for sustainable machining modelling.…”