Capturing green information and mapping with MES functions for increasing manufacturing sustainability

Manufacturing systems usually consume more raw materials and energy than other major sectors such as residential, commercial, and transportation systems. Such vast resource consumption makes the manufacturing field the most important factor to realize potential benefits from pursuing energy efficiency and sustainability. Nowadays, more manufacturing firms introduce information systems to their shop floors, representatively the Manufacturing Execution System (MES), in order to share and manage the sustainability information generated from manufacturing processes. Furthermore, as importance of sustainability including energy efficiency is getting emphasized, manufacturing firms should consider the management function of sustainability when they implement or customize their own MES. Modeling processes are necessary to design MES functions by capturing relevant information and mapping captured information with corresponding functions. To support the design of MES functions considering sustainability or energy consumption on manufacturing processes, this paper proposes a new modeling methodology of manufacturing processes referred to as Green information based Manufacturing Process Modeling (GMPM). A methodology is also proposed to help manufacturing firms identify their mandatory MES functions by mapping captured information with the ISA-95 standard. The proposed methodologies can be useful to design and introduce MES effectively and quickly by recommending proper MES functions for pursuing sustainability goals.