e-SAVE project develops management tools for environmental protection

Against the backdrop of global climate change and rising production costs, more and more industries are committed to the economical management of energy resources and greater environmental protection. Especially the production of consumer goods causes large environmental impacts, but so far the necessary management methods and systems to effectively implement energy saving measures are missing.

The aim of the e-SAVE research project, which is funded by the European Commission, is to make environmental performance indicators and the dynamic energy profile of products and processes available to operational controlling and supply chain management. To this end, the e-SAVE partners are developing an information infrastructure as well as applications and tools. In addition, the project supports efficient information management and collaboration between partner companies along the supply chain to ensure an uninterrupted flow of information along the entire product life cycle.

Furthermore, comprehensive data on dynamic consumption behavior of products and processes will be obtained with the help of sensors and automatic identification methods. The collected data will be made available to supply chain partners as a platform to monitor energy use and carbon footprint data along the supply chain as well as to integrate energy saving measures into the decision making process. On the one hand, everyday work processes are influenced, e.g. route planning or filling rhythms are optimized, but if necessary, the supply chain process is also adjusted, e.g. certain warehouses are eliminated or distribution channels are changed.

In addition to SimPlan AG, ten other European partner organizations are involved in the e-SAVE project, including the Technical University of Dortmund, the University of Athens and the Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Furthermore, the Italian food company Barilla S.p.A. and METRO Greece are part of the project, as well as BOC Asset Management Gmbh, ECR EUROPE ASBL and the software companies INTRASOFT International S.A., Quantis Sàrl and Intelen Services Ltd.

SimPlan will make an important contribution to the e-SAVE toolkit by developing a supply chain simulation component based on the SimChain Toolkit. With this simulation tool, users can create a wide variety of “what if” scenarios by, for example, adding or removing nodes in their supply chain, changing transportation options, or assigning products to other locations. In addition to typical logistics metrics such as service levels, transport costs and environmental indicators can also be tracked as well as forecast in the simulation models.