Minimizing energy consumption via multiple installations aggregate production planning

As most of the energy in today’s scenario is still relied on fossil fuels and it causes a negative impact on the environment, hence energy saving should be considered as an important element of production planning. However, energy-efficient production planning should also be cost-efficient. There are technologies that are expected to become affordable in due time frame. Such affordability and expected technology advancements can be included in production planning using multiple installations of production facilities. In this paper, an insight-based graphical method is proposed for multiple installations aggregate production planning that minimizes energy consumption of production facilities. The methodology is capable of accounting capital cost affordability as well. Application of the proposed methodology on illustrative examples demonstrates that significant energy reduction can be achieved by multiple installations production planning.