Manufacturing Preliminary Assessment: Present and Future Strategies – Past Tactics
ENERGY EFFICIENCY _ANNEX (iv):
Manufacturing Preliminary Assessment: Present and Future Strategies – Past Tactics
Whenever you decided to get involved in the process of energy efficiency within an organization, it is very likely that you already ran your first trials with an extraordinary variety of results. And it might also happen that you stayed wandering why should you start new actions, modify investment intensity, or redirect some resources in such a “traditional and well known area” as that of energy efficiency outlook.
Far from the newer and more efficient equipment approach that your preferred equipment supplier and some low skilled energy efficiency schools might be suggesting to you at the light of a total cost reduction strategy (within an increasing investment scenario!?), and extremely broader than a single energy utility dealer proposal, just playing with negotiations and market pricing, I would suggest to start from this single tool shown in the box diagram. It is just about trying how the model fit the different areas below, above, and beyond the scope of your strategy in energy efficiency. As far as this strategy is inevitable in the case that you are committed to your Environmental Policy.
The initial mapping with this single model, might also help to avoid the only-action-oriented-tactic that is providing sustained return on energy savings in the best of cases, while it is risking continuity on a sustainable direction and some derived advantageous processes due to the lack of connection and poor framing within the overall structure and functions (how can we honestly involve the maintenance team but providing them, among others, with predictive tools by means of energy efficiency technology).
At this point it is explicitly remarkable also the risk of growing the seed only in the engineering playground as a way of limiting the long term transforming positive potential of energy efficiency concepts.
Unfortunately the simplicity of the proposed model does not emphasize the way that top management will contribute this time to enable, enhance, and proactively promote the success of reaching beyond the current manufacturing state of the art, by means of energy efficiency. Keep in mind that time ago, in his/her very first training courses, some managers were taught to turn the lights off and he/she is still using a post-it on the office door as a remainder. Nevertheless, like in former Quality, Productivity, Safety, Training, Health… programs, we firmly need convinced neighbourhood living in the attic.
With regard to specific resources, so far, it is very unlikely that you have already the appropriate tools for changing the focus from productivity within a supply chain environment, into a safe and productive quality manufacturing within a supply flow1 environment that gathers not only materials utilisation but also energy management. As you may know facing the challenge of including energy figures in your current manufacturing recipe bill of materials is not an easy task, and much less doing so while reconciling the views of process engineering, production and safety care when transforming the current processes. Possibility of unexpected productivity released as a result of success in your action is not a minor issue either.
Yet in the case that you are starting figuring out your future manufacturing processes capable of including decision making tools dealing with different sources of energy usage, depending both on external supply and weather conditions for in-plant Renewable resources, there are some more reasons why I suggest when using this model for initial mapping on energy efficiency tours, not to avoid the following four questions in the checklist:
- What is the individual equipment energy efficiency?
- What is the process energy efficiency?
- What is the equipment energy efficiency within each of the processes that it contributes to?
- How can you benchmark the processes energy efficiency beyond coarse “big numbers” among plants?
Different answers should start leading the way to new areas of research and innovation on energy management, preferably accessing the path to the subject of energy autonomy and how to extend to the future manufacturing based on renewable energy sources.
Even companies dealing with Excellence, will struggle to avoid the narrow and short term view of cost reduction tightly related to the open/close faucet tactics in the energy usage, before starting the setting up of their own energy efficiency markers enabling the transformation of the Organization, Procedures, Quality, Product Quality, Productivity, Operations Planning and Product Life Cycle…
(1) Main challenges in the way to success in energy efficiency management arise from the combination of supply chain links with analogue supply flow and the setting of coherent fences
Tags: eficiencia, investigacion