I often hear that "Energy audit costs money, but saves no energy". This is true and not true at the same time. Here is why: Any experienced plant manager knows that their plant wastes utilities. No shame in this. Every plant wastes energy. Few plant managers know where exactly this waste occurs and even [...]
Our South African colleague Craig van Wyk from VWG Consulting expressed a consideration very much worth republishing: if savings per unit are achieved and sustained in high-volume manufacturing, they keep mounting every hour of every day. Here is Craig's message: During my years in management in the high-volume manufacturing environment, prior to becoming a [...]
A mere 1 month after an Energy Management Information System (EMIS) project was postponed ‘due to other priorities’ our client’s plant has stopped for 3 days. About $500,000 lost in pre-holidays food product sales. Not to count costs of avoidable urgent repairs and value of lost trust from clients. Why did plant stop? Boiler [...]
To be effective energy management project must start with goals to be achieved, not tools and technologies available. Managing energy has no meaning if it does not contribute to what your plant is doing. However profitable a project is, if it does not contribute to production, quality or safety, it will always be assessed [...]
A common way to determine energy intensity in manufacturing is to divide energy cost by production volume, resulting in kWh per car or m3 per pound of bread. This simplistic approach may hit energy manager where it hurts the most - at evaluation of completed projects. A good well-implemented project may show dismal savings [...]
Energy audit takes time and costs money, is it worth the effort? How do I know if it will uncover enough saving opportunities? To quickly estimate how much money can be saved on utilities, we have devised an express tool - Energy Management Score assessment™. EMS is based on a premise that the way [...]
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? [...]
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 [...]
