The energy saving opportunity in targeting non-value added manufacturing activities – a structured approach

With an ongoing increase in industrial energy demand anticipated in Europe, energy efficiency continues to be an important focus within industrial environments. This paper documents an approach to support the study and analysis of energy optimisation within complex manufacturing process chains. It focuses on generating an energy characteristic for complex discrete part manufacturing equipment and identifying optimisation opportunities based on targeting non value added process states. A structured problem solving approach is used to identify and evaluate risk factors associated with the implementation of improvements with qualitative workforce input supporting the risk assessment. It also develops an assessment of an organisations capability to manage an energy improvement in order to minimise risk to core Overall Equipment Effectiveness metrics thereby ensuring opportunities are feasible and pragmatic. This supports a deeper understanding of energy use and potential operational impacts due to energy based change. This demonstrates the need to consider the implications of energy change to an organisation in terms of operational metrics. The approach has been applied successfully across a range of manufacturing industries including multinational environments such as information and communication technology, pharmaceutical and medical device as well as Irish small and medium enterprises. The case study presented delivered a 51% reduction in energy consumption for targeted manufacturing states used by discrete part manufacturing equipment.