Net fitting based production planning and decision support system for energy intensive industries

In recent years significant research efforts have been related with the energy efficiency in energy intensive industries. It is promising that EU has already demonstrated how much can be done in reducing the energy intensity of manufacturing processes through energy efficiency and sustainable production processes. The overall objective of any energy efficiency related program or project in industry is reduction of costs, energy consumption, environmental impacts and raw material use. The research work presented in this paper is related to long term production planning and decision support system based on the artificial neural network net fitting model. To tackle these challenges a system for simulation and analysis of future situations relevant for production planning in energy intensive industries has been developed. It enables optimal response on excessive energy consumption and costs in relation to fuel changes and environmental impacts. The results presented in this paper confirm that the addressed system has the potential to be applied in energy intensive industries, taking into account plant specific input parameters and context variables.