Towards a Computational Framework for Energy Estimation - Needs, Requirements, and Its Generic Shell

Excessive energy consumption has become a worldwide issue in today's design and manufacturing industry. A framework for estimating energy consumption that could later be used to integrate with CAD/CAM systems is in demand. This paper initially presents needs and requirements for a computational framework to estimate energy consumption during a product life-cycle, i.e., from extraction of raw materials to recycling or disposal. Energy estimations allow for asset management, thereby reducing the negative impacts of the product to the environment. At the manufacturing stage, asset management can be based on energy efficient process planning and scheduling. As a first step, the research presented in this paper proposes a framework that represents a generic shell for computing energy.