The efficient use of resources has always been a component of successful business. In recent years, politicians, the society and the economy have become more aware of the issue of energy efficiency. For example, the European Union's climate targets for 2020 call for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990, an increase in the share of renewable energies to 20% and a 20% increase in energy efficiency.

From a research perspective, various approaches in the field of manufacturing technology and production management have been considered so far to increase energy efficiency. This has resulted in isolated optimisations. There is currently no research that includes a linkage of all levels of industrial production.This is the reason for the research approach of the research project “EMC²-Factory – Eco Manufactured transportation means from Clean and Competitive Factory”, which was launched in October 2011 and is funded by the European Union. The aim of the project is to further increase energy efficiency in production and even exceed the CO2 reduction targets of the European Union by taking a holistic view of components of individual machines, optimising process chains and management methods.

The planned research work is divided into a total of four project phases. In the first project phase, the requirements of a resource-efficient factory will be analysed, taking into account the requirements of the different industrial environments to be found in the project. First of all, the model of a “green factory” will be developed and a comparative data basis will be created to make the results of the project measurable. Subsequently, in the next phase of the project, new and alternative process technologies in the area of joining processes, assembly and machining with reduced resource and energy requirements will be researched. The use of intelligent, energy-efficient components (sensors and actuators) that allow the current energy and media consumption to be evaluated and influenced will play an important role. These measures are accompanied by the simulation-based development of methods for recording, monitoring and controlling the energy and media flows in the factory. The third phase of the project involves translating the results into guidelines for planning, evaluating and operating energy-efficient and competitive factories for the automotive and transport industries. The fourth project phase is the demonstration, where the potentials of the interaction of all developed energy efficiency measures are verified in the practical environment in the real production environments of the project partners.