Energy Saving Story;
What is energy saving? Is it a choice or is it a must for plants ?
This question should be answered very carefully to implement it .
Let’s put you on your boss’s shoes and think about that .You have got a plant which has been producing a valuable product for industry and you have got financial controllers who explain you that energy prices will be pushed up during 1-3 years .
You sell your products to Europen countries and that puts you in a risky position on EURO/USD parity which is being predicted to be fallen down .Additional to these, you have got responsibilities to be paid in USD, like production machines, infrastructure investments etc. By the way your plant is located in a Middleast country whose exchange rate is going down against USD for sometime .Your country’s energy bill is affected negatively because of USD raise.
Let’s ask the question again to your boss. Energy saving is a choice or a must for your business. If you don’t do anything else about energy consumption, it will put you in a very dramatic situation .
The boss begin to think about that;energy consumption. I have got a technical team who deals with production, maintenance and etc.
I think they are taking care of this.
Is he right ? Has his technical teams been working on it ?
This question is very tricky becasue; these teams first priority is production and continuity, not energy .This is a industrial habit for technical teams;they are very capable of production,maintenance,technical projects but energy?
Energy is something different and it is not very important from teams approach .They think that this is boss’s job to negotiate with energy supplier or official state foundation .
Boss will be dealing with energy topic .
No,boss has got lots of jobs to do .
What he will do, BOSS will find a company which can perform an energy audit and give a technical report showing malfunctions on the system and possible cost savings with paybacks .
Compressed Air Story;
You have got machines which have been working with 6 bar compressed air. Ask yourself, are your compressors working in 6 bar or they producing 7 or 8 bar .This is a tricky question.
You need 6 bar on production machines but you produce 7 or 8 bar .What is going on?
Can there be a problem about your lining system through production machine? Boss had found the company that build the system.It was ok in first step when 10 machines were producing .Now Boss has got 25 machines and he added one compressor that was advised by compressor salesman .
Come on what is going on ? Salesman made a trick to Boss.
Salesman didn’t do anything.Boss phoned him and said that he need a compressor about 10 cubicmeter/minute. Boss gave data amount volume rate.So Boss performed wrong calculation .He took the technical spesification of machine and decided as he did for last buyed 14 machines .
Nobody calculated anything. Nobody studied on the effect of 14 machines on facility system.Now we have got problem .
1 bar difference between your need and your supply means 6-8% extra cost of electiricty .
So for this particular example it means at least there is cost saving potential of 12-15% on electrical consumption .
How correction can be done or can Boss realize about this problem before he bought 25.machine ?
If Boss had asked question to his technical team about extra consumption of electiricity or performed audits to facility management,he would have realized it before buying new machine .
Boss decided to find a consultancy company regarding working on energy saving projects and lean production .
New stories will come up with chiller, heating, individual cooling, furnaces and all facility energy supplies.
Happy Ending
