Energy-Efficient Control Strategies for Machine Tools With Stochastic Arrivals

Energy saving in production plants is becoming more and more relevant due to the pressure from governments to contain the environmental impact of manufacturing and from companies to reduce costs. One of the measures for saving energy is the implementation of control strategies that reduce energy consumption during the machine idle periods. This paper proposes a framework that integrates different control policies for switching the machine off when production is not critical and on when the part flow has to be resumed. A general policy is formalized by modelling explicitly the energy consumed at each machine state. The policy parameters that minimize the requested machine expected energy are provided analytically for general distributions. Numerical results are based on data acquired with dedicated experimental measurements on a real machining centre, and a comparison with the most common practices in manufacturing is also reported.