An event-log analysis and simulation-based approach for quantifying sustainability metrics in production facilities

This paper describes a discrete-event simulation and event-log analysis based approach for computing sustainability metrics in production environments to perform various types of comparative analysis and assessments. Event logs collected from the production environment are analyzed to compute current state sustainability metrics such as energy usage, carbon footprint and heating/cooling requirements. Bootstrapping based forecasting leveraging expert input is utilized to estimate future demand. The forecasted demand is then simulated to predict sustainability metrics. The discrete-event simulation results from the forecasted data and computation of heat produced is combined with thermodynamic models of heat transfer through the thermal envelope of the facility to provide more accurate estimates of true carbon footprint associated with the production operations while also enabling cross-comparative studies of setting operations in different geographical locations. The framework and software tool enables the integration of productivity metrics and sustainability metrics in decision-making process for designing and operating production environments.