Energy Consumption Management

While energy use has the potential to be a new frontier in cost savings, it is one of the most elusive and hard-to-manage costs in manufacturing. The majority of energy coming into the plant is used to power machinery, convert raw materials into intermediate products, generate steam, or facilitate production. Through behavioral and programming changes, you can actually use less energy - for example, by using more efficient equipment, reusing waste heat in your processes, or scheduling production to minimize energy-intensive changeover procedures. You also can use cheaper energy by managing where, how, and when energy is used in order to harness it when it is least expensive, such as during off-peak times. Finally, you can optimize energy use to achieve production goals in the least expensive, most profitable way while balancing the many variables inherent to manufacturing. This dimension will ultimately have the most impact on financial performance, because you can actively manage energy as one of many inputs to the overall production equation. Here's how.