7w a y s to manage energy consumption
By Phil Kaufman and Marcia Walker
This is a time of unprecedented complexity for manufacturing: Managing production operations
while balancing regulations, supply, pricing, retailer requirements, consumer
demands, operational efficiencies, and
other demands is extremely challenging.
While energy usage has the potential to
be a new frontier in cost savings, it has
become one of the most elusive and
hard-to-manage costs in manufacturing,
with high levels of variability and volatility.
Crude oil prices, for example, skyrocket
to a record $140 per barrel one day and
plummet to $63 just a month later.
As developing countries become
more industrialized and apply pressure
on energy resources, manufacturers face
the very real possibility that water, gas,
oil, and electricity may simply not be available when needed. For example, less than
1 percent of the world’s water is available for human use; yet consumption is
estimated to increase by 40 percent over
the next 20 years. These risks and uncer-
Energy in a Third
Dimension
Some energy is used for facility operations such as heating, cooling, and
lighting the building. Typically, however,
most of the energy coming into the plant
is used to power machinery, to convert
raw materials into intermediate products, to generate steam, or to facilitate
production.
Traditionally, industrial energy consumption has been seen in one dimension as an unavoidable, unmanageable
cost of doing business. But, in fact, managing energy is actually a three-dimensional challenge: reducing consumption,
accessing lower rates, and optimizing
use. Fortunately, you can make behavioral and programming changes to use
energy more productively.
