Minimizing Energy Consumption and Costs in Textile Finishing Industrial Processes

ABSTRACT This work presents an optimization approach for the stenter finishing process of knit fabrics in textile industries. An optimization model with Mixed Integer Linear Programming formulation was developed to minimize energy consumption and process costs with resizing and sequencing of batches in stenter‐type machines, the main energy bottleneck in the sector. The objective function to be minimized is the total operational cost, considering electricity and labor. A case study was conducted with real data from an industry located in the state of Paraná, Brazil, for four types of knit fabrics with a daily demand of 70 000 kg, distributed across six stenter units. Results demonstrated that the optimized solution prioritizes higher yield raw materials in higher capacity machines. A simulation was carried out replacing two machines with a more efficient unit, reducing total cost in 9.2%. It is concluded that the model is effective for strategic decision‐making and allows in the process.