Abstract Sustainability is a topic that has been addressed and enhanced with significant improvement opportunities by the fourth industrial revolution, which is an essential strategy in the medium- and long-term for industries to adapt to an urgent necessity from society: for competitive and sustainable manufacturing of goods. In that regard, energy efficiency is one of the key aspects for industries that want to achieve a sustainable and carbon neutral production process. This paper approaches how the application of technologies and methodologies can substantially improve processes overall efficiency in terms of energy consumption. This paper is divided in a three-step research, starting with: a systematic review to identify how smart manufacturing and cyber–physical systems are leveraging results in manufacturing energy efficiency; followed by experiments to make real-time monitoring and simulation of industrial energy consumption to optimize processes and reduce energy waste, and as a third and final step results are discussed showing gains in production planning and potential saving opportunities in manufacturing energy consumption and costs.