Ever walk out of your manufacturing plant, stroll toward the parking lot and watch waste heat lazily exit the stacks? Did you take it one step further and think, "There must be a way to capture and reuse that heat?" And then did you go even further and actually make that change happen, helping to reduce energy waste in your facility?

It happened at a Procter & Gamble Co. plant. It happened because the consumer goods giant makes energy efficiency every employee's business. Indeed, the worker who observed the heat escaping his plant and initiated the process that resulted in the implementation of a heat-recovery process was not an expert in that area, explains Willie Johnson, P&G product supply sustainability leader. But while other folks may have seen the energy inefficiency, "he took it upon himself to say, 'We're going to do something about it.' What we are trying to do is to get everyone to act like they are owners of this business or of this company. And when you do that you begin to get more creative solutions," he says. "If you make it where only a small group of people are working on it, you get a small amount of results."

See Also Getting Started Begin your energy efficiency program by identifying your current power usage. Then rely on real data.

Not every manufacturer is pursuing energy efficiency in the same manner as P&G, but you'd be hard-pressed these days to find any kind of manufacturer not seeking methods to dial down their energy usage or to use that energy more effectively. The cost of not doing so is simply too high.

Small Changes, Big Savings

AAI Corp.'s Charleston (S.C.) Operations discovered some rather obvious opportunities to reduce energy usage after it moved in mid-2005 into an existing facility. The building previously had housed a Corning specialty materials plant that required a much larger and more complex HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system than did AAI's Charleston operations, which manufactures aircraft maintenance training simulators for the military. AAI's Charleston workforce of nearly 300 is largely office personnel and engineers, with a production staff of 20. The production work primarily is final assembly and integration.

Given their lack of experience with the building, AAI staff initially operated the facility much as it had been run by the previous tenant, according to Dan Davis, director of operations. Relatively quickly it became apparent that significant opportunity existed to reduce energy simply by turning some things off. Easy wins with significant returns included shutting down an 800-ton chiller that operated 24 hours a day and instead relying on an existing 300-ton chiller that did not run around the clock once the plant's load had been reduced. Others included reducing cooling tower operation by half and shutting down two 100-horsepower cooling tower pumps. The heaviest loads were the focus of the first energy-reduction efforts, Davis explains. "We gained a lot of momentum early on," he says.

Procter & Gamble takes a comprehensive approach to energy efficiency and other sustainability measures. Key to making that approach successful is involving all of its employees.

In another instance, the building had one large air handling unit that served both a high bay area and cooled 3,000 square feet of IT office space and servers. Because it serviced an IT area, the system had to operate 24 hours a day despite the high bay not requiring that level of cooling. Additionally, it had to run at 68 degrees to maintain 72 degrees in the IT space. AAI's solution was to install a separate HVAC system for the IT area that worked independently of the central chilled water system. As a result, the company was able to shut down more of its HVAC system, and the temperature of the high bay could be increased to a more comfortable level for workers there. While this conversion came at a cost, "we were saving money that we had budgeted to spend on overhead costs through the year," Davis says. "We gained a lot of confidence in being able to exercise these small projects of $20,000 or so -- small modifications that we could get big benefits from."

While several of AAI's energy-reduction efforts centered on circumstances unique to its facility, others did not. For example, production manager Lonnie Russell has been testing different operating schedules for the heating and cooling systems, working to extend the downtime of the system without impacting workers' comfort. Additionally, the company added variable speed drives to several pieces of equipment. Reducing the speed to only what was needed allowed AAI to reduce energy consumption (up to 90% in some cases) and better control humidity without using expensive reheat. Slower blower speeds can also make for a quieter work environment.

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