Condition monitoring towards energy-efficient manufacturing: a review

Recently, sustainable development has obtained increasing attentions from governments, industry, and academia owing to the limited natural resources. In the area of energy consumption, manufacturing accounts for a major portion of the total energy usage in industry. There is a clear necessity for energy-efficient manufacturing by optimizing manufacturing activities. Condition monitoring is the technology that provides runtime information for optimization. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of past achievements and future trends of condition monitoring towards energy-efficient manufacturing. Since there are a variety of sensors and technologies that can be used for condition monitoring towards energy-efficient manufacturing, this paper divides manufacturing activities into three levels, namely unit process level, shop-floor level, and supply chain level, and summarizes and discusses the sensors and technologies required to enable energy-efficient manufacturing on each level. With the advancement of technology, condition monitoring shows the characteristic of intelligence. Intelligent sensors that can be applied to condition monitoring in energy-efficient manufacturing are also reviewed. This paper can be helpful to manufacturers who are willing to improve energy efficiency in own manufacturing practice.