ISO Issues New Standards for Greener Machine Tools

ISO recently published the first two parts of a new international standard for the environmental evaluation of machine tools.

ISO 14955-1 (Machine tools – Environmental evaluation of machine tools – Part 1: Design methodology for energy-efficient machine tools) addresses the energy efficiency of machine tools during their working life. It identifies the main functions and machine tool components that are responsible for energy demand during the usage phase. Components are then compared with previous components or state-of-the-art versions for their future improvement.

ISO 14955-2 (Machine tools – Environmental evaluation of machine tools – Part 2: Methods for measuring energy supplied to machine tools and machine tool components) supports the energy-saving design methodology according to ISO 14955-1 by providing practical methods for measuring the energy supplied to machine tools.

"This is, to my knowledge, the only standard concerning this topic that is tailored for machine tools," said Ralf Reines of the ISO technical committee 39/working group 12, which developed the standards. "It covers the topic in a way that can be applied to each and every machine tool, despite the fact that the product group of machine tools is extremely diverse, e.g., different technologies, processing of material and sizes. The standard focuses on the relevant energy users need to achieve a higher environmental performance without losing in technical possibilities."

For more information, visit www.iso.org.