Slow production time is an opportunity to do that myriad of small projects that maintenance kept suggesting for years, but could never implement because 'production comes first'. Now is the time to do them. How to find micro maintenance/efficiency projects during slow time? When external resources are limited, what do we do? We turn [...]
During quarantine time many plants face uncertain work load and even less certain revenue. The simplest way to save energy and cost to turn unnecessary machines off. This simple recommendation is rarely easy to implement, it's even more difficult to monitor. How to find if unneeded machines are turned off without breaking a bank? [...]
A perfectly efficient machines can still waste lots of primary or secondary utilities. A complex utility audit routinely uncovers how water, heat or 'cooling' can be reused. Hot water reuse at poultry slaughter house Two industrial poultry processing procedures were set in adjacent production space - vacuum pump and scalding. [...]
Situation Doing nothing is an investment decision too. Investment with a guaranteed return of nothing. Here is a common conversation at a manufacturing plant: Me: … Implementation will cost you $5K and save $15K within 12 months. Maintenance manager: So we save $10K? Not much for our plant. Besides, I do not make investment [...]
A common objection to doing an energy audit is that 'Everything is fine'. This is rarely the case. Here are two examples when audit uncovered saving opportunities that clients did not know existed because they believed everything was in perfect state already. Efficient equipment does not equate to efficient operation. Sanitation staff turned [...]
A common belief is that if plant is equipped with efficient machines it runs efficiently. Unfortunately, this is not always true. Efficiency of components does not equate to efficiency of the whole plant. Common reason for utility waste by efficient machines: Misuse: compressed air used instead of blowers or for cooling, oversized motors, excessive [...]
We often hear: "Our plant runs at top energy efficiency because we use these procedures and settings and our efficient equipment is fully operational." Just how often is this true? With all due respect to maintenance and operational staff, recommendations of a proper energy audit are based on direct observation of operations and lots [...]
A lot of energy costs can be saved at manufacturing plant without CAPEX.
Complex energy audit does not look at energy alone. It considers how energy use affects core business - production, quality, scrap, employee productivity.
In previous post of the "Energy Audit Series" we talked about What makes energy audit free and How is energy inefficiency alike health issues. In this post we will dive a bit deeper into how energy audit creates value to companies. I said it before and will say it again: Energy audit by itself [...]
