Energy Economics in Multistage Manufacturing Systems With Quality Control: A Modeling and Improvement Approach

It is imperative for manufacturing systems to improve production quality not only to maintain profitability, market share and competitiveness, but also to reduce energy waste resulted from defective items. Although quality and energy saving have attracted extensive attention in the past few decades, there is little research effort devoted to a systematic understanding of their intersection. Therefore, this paper analyzes the energy usage of a multistage production system with quality control. The Geometric reliability and Bernoulli quality models are assumed. A Markov process model is established to predict the dynamics of the production system. The energy economics of the production system are analyzed to include both production and energy cost. The optimal PWQ (Production with Quality Inspection) machine allocation method and the cost-effectiveness analysis method are formulated to increase the profit. According to the computational experiments, the proposed optimal PWQ machine allocation method can effectively reduce energy consumption. In addition, pay-back period (PBP) is an effective indicator which helps production managers make cost effective decisions for machine replacement. The research results in an in-depth understanding of the energy economics of systems with quality control, which is necessary for manufacturers to gain competitiveness with better product quality and higher energy efficiency.