Energy and cost efficiency in CNC machining

General cost for CNC machining and the associated energy cost are set in the context of making economic and environmental improvements. This creates an incentive for manufacturing companies to investigate the energy efficiency of manufacturing processes. The paper presents a costing model, based on machining experiments. The model is accompanied with an industry based case to estimate the cost savings. The results show that substantial cost savings with respect to energy efficiency is unlikely, since energy costs in CNC machining comprises a small cost component. However significant cost savings can be achieved if the production output is increased as a consequence from higher material removal rates due to optimised machining parameters.