We are pleased to announce that Marian Süße from Fraunhofer IWU represented the ECOFACT project at the 31st CIRP Life Cycle Engineering (LCE) Conference, held in Turin, Italy, in June 2024. This annual event, organised by the International Academy for Production Engineering (CIRP), serves as a global platform for researchers, industry professionals, and academics to exchange knowledge in the field of Life Cycle Engineering (LCE).
The conference, renowned for its focus on integrating sustainability principles into manufacturing, provided a valuable stage for discussing topics like eco-design, sustainable manufacturing, and life cycle assessment. Marian’s presentation on behalf of ECOFACT focused on the project’s innovative approach to combining material flow simulation and optimisation—specifically in the context of automotive paint shops.
Highlights from Marian’s Presentation
In his talk, Marian discussed the methods developed within ECOFACT to merge simulation and optimisation processes for sustainable manufacturing. His presentation emphasised the findings of a paper co-authored by Marian, Xinyi Xie, and Steffen Ihlenfeldt titled “Combining Material Flow Simulation and Optimization for Sustainable Manufacturing – Application in Automotive Paint Shops.” This research offers valuable insights into the real-world application of simulation and heuristic optimisation to enhance energy efficiency and reduce paint waste in industrial settings.
Key takeaways from Marian’s presentation included:
- Exploring various approaches to combining optimisation and simulation for factory systems, offering new possibilities for sustainable production.
- Recognising that while these methods show great promise, their readiness depends on the available input data, requiring individual adaptation for each application.
About the Paper
The paper, published in Procedia CIRP as part of the 31st CIRP LCE Conference proceedings, examines two use cases within automotive paint shops. The research focuses on reducing environmental impacts by optimising heating processes and improving batching procedures. These innovative methods resulted in a 25% increase in batch size and successfully minimised paint waste while cutting down on load peaks during production.
For those interested in learning more, the full paper can be accessed on our Resources page or through Elsevier here.
Stay connected with us for more updates on ECOFACT’s innovative projects and our role in shaping a sustainable future for manufacturing.
