## 5 Conclusions
To further enhance the effectiveness of the energy and air consumption monitoring system and move towards achieving net-zero energy consumption, several key steps are recommended:  
* Expanding Monitoring to Additional Machines: Extending the system to monitor the energy and air consumption of more machines within the factory will enable a comprehensive analysis of resource usage, uncovering broader inefficiencies and opportunities for optimization. * Comparative Energy and Air Consumption Analysis: Conducting a detailed comparative study across various machines will help identify high-consumption outliers and best-performing systems, allowing for targeted efficiency improvements and informed decision-making. * Centralized Dashboard for Real-Time Insights: Developing a centralized IIoT-based dashboard to integrate and visualize energy and air consumption data from all monitored machines will provide real-time tracking, trend analysis, and data-driven recommendations, enhancing operational efficiency. * Identification and Optimization of High Energy Consumers: Analyzing collected data to pinpoint key electricity-consuming machines and processes will allow for focused energy-saving strategies, including equipment upgrades, process optimizations, and the adoption of energy-efficient technologies to further reduce overall energy demand. * Measuring Total Air Production and Compressor Energy Usage: A critical next step is to measure the total compressed air production of the factory's main air compressors along with their electricity consumption. This will enable an assessment of how optimizing individual machines impacts overall air production and compressor operating costs, helping to reduce unnecessary energy expenditure and enhance system-wide efficiency. * Enhancing Scalability and Integration: Future work could explore wireless sensor networks, cost-effective alternatives, and adaptive integration strategies to enhance scalability and minimize operational disruptions. By implementing these advancements, the energy and air consumption monitoring system can be refined into a more robust and scalable framework for reducing energy waste, lowering operational costs, and supporting the factory's long-term sustainability objectives. Conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, investigation, data curation, visualization, S.H. ; writing--original draft preparation, S.H. ; project administration, S.H. ; resources, S.H. and B.A. ; writing--review and editing, S.H., B.A., G.L. and D.M. ; supervision, B.A., G.L. and D.M. ; funding acquisition, B.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This research was founded by Innovate UK under the Grant No. 11659 and Mitsubishi Electric Air-Conditioning Systems Europe Ltd.  
Not applicable. The data used in this research are private due to M-ACE confidentiality. We thank the West of Scotland Knowledge Transfer Partnership Centre and Innovate UK for the support and funding of this partnership. **Conflicts of Interest**: The author [PERSON] was employed by the company \"Mitsubishi Electric Air Conditioning Systems Europe Ltd.\". The remaining authors declare that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.