One phenomena that baffles us and our clients more often than we’d like is when our audit team’s list of “low cost quick wins” often aren’t implemented immediately.
When we check back, many clients haven’t fixed their leaks. They haven’t made simple process improvements to make sure each department that uses compressed air is receiving that air at the correct pressures. They haven’t… they haven’t…
These are simple fixes. They can save you A LOT of money and these savings can be leveraged into other improvements in the compressed air system and around the plant.
Generally the ‘low cost stuff’ is really sorting out the demand side of your compressed air system.
The reason why they don’t get followed up on can be quite simple. Your team’s priorities. I bet your team is busy. I bet they often spend more than their forty hours on the job trying to get everything done.
They don’t have time to read let alone address the findings in the auditor’s report.
In order to capture those improvements in your plant – you need a plan.
Here is how I would attack the challenge of my demand side savings:
Run It As A Project.
You’ve got a goal to capture savings. And to prove this project has paid off you need to be able to measure before and after. You’ve got a set of milestones in your report – you could call them your project deliverables. We prioritize these opportunities (calculate the biggest savings opportunity and make it priority one etc.) for clients in our compressed air audits. Other auditors do not. Lack of clear priorities can be a problem when you are getting started.
You know the project is done when all of those savings opportunities have been captured. Finally once you’re done you can measure the before and after and count the dollars in the bank.
Measurement.
While you are planning your project, get your measurement plan in place. Here at Pye-Barker we have the expertise to measure and manage the installation of a metering system. Be sure to meter your supply side and also the opportunity areas on your demand side.
Tackle Priority One.
Now that we have our measurement in place, we can figure out how we can slash the demand on project priority one. It might be a zone in your compressed air system where you’ve identified some major leaks. Your project manager can work with the appropriate team members to identify and then fix all of the tasks associated with completing this phase of the project.
Then you should be able to do a ‘before and after’ comparison of compressed air and power consumption. And work out the return on your investment.
Repeat for the remaining opportunities.
Plan your next phase, find and fix. Compare your before and afters.
Project management can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be. Generally simpler is better. Be clear about your objectives and be sure you can show a result. Nothing talks more clearly than results.
All compressed air savings plans start with a comprehensive compressed air audit. Pye-Barker has been helping all types of compressed air users get the best return on their compressed air systems with our thorough Compressed Air Auditing system. You can find out more about our compressed air audits by calling 404-363-6000 or emailing sales@pyebarker.com
