Research plan on the development of a holistic eco-design methodology for conceiving eco-efficient and highly productive machine tools

Machinery manufacturers are facing the challenge of increasing the productivity of their machines while assuring at the same time high levels of accuracy and reliability. This increase in the productivity is being achieved anyway at the expense of increasing also the consumption of material and energy resources. In view of this, this paper presents a methodology for designing machine tools that achieve high levels of productivity while reducing their material content for the production phase, reducing thus also the energy consumption during their use phase. Following this methodology, a complete milling machine has been designed and produced which, combining different technologies (light materials, active damping etc.), has reduced the inertias involved in servo-drives by over 50%, with a corresponding reduction in energy consumption, whereas the productivity of the machine has been increased by 100%, in such a way that productivity and eco-efficiency have been combined in a single machine: the eco-productive milling machine.