Archive for February, 2010
Know Your Energy Consumption of Individual Assets Across Your Business
by Daniel Stouffer
Industrial and commercial enterprises are not being pressured to find means to cut down energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions. Decision-makers in companies are now finding solutions but are overwhelmed by the different areas that need to be solved first to address the main problem of greenhouse gas emissions.
The government is now aggressively imposing legislation with corresponding monetary penalties for any enterprise that does not comply. Suppliers are expecting adoption of “green” policies, strategies and procedures while consumers are now better educated on the environmental threat of greenhouse gas emissions.
Any business faces the challenge of measuring its individual asset efficiency which has been historically poor at its best. To extend any asset’s life, proper maintenance is necessary, and any business would need to be be very particular in preventive maintenance as procuring assets entails high costs. This will be translated as operational costs and return of investment in the balance sheet.
By segregating each asset, companies will be able to see which ones are poorly maintained which can result to poor efficiency, and therefore, larger carbon footprint. In doing this, it is essential to get information on the exact energy consumption of every asset and assess efficiency through baseline standards.
An enterprise should factor its energy use into total cost calculations since energy use could reach up to 90% of the lifetime of any asset. Poor efficiency of any asset is mainly due to poor maintenance, and it is therefore important for proper maintenance to be pursued by any enterprise.
A strong enterprise asset management program must engage all its employees to ensure successful operation and must be positioned in front and center. Such program should be able to interpret optimum energy consumption of each particular asset as a measure of it efficiency in performance. If an asset starts to under-perform with its target consumption as the benchmark, corresponding notification should be triggered. The company should also lay out replacement strategies and incorporate it in its operating timetable, structured in such a way that it will make the most economic savings.
An enterprise asset management program should be a continuous diagnosis, detection, and monitoring of any company’s assets’ performance. Ideally, preventive maintenance should be a priority in operations. Any indication of an upward trend in energy use by any asset indicates a trigger for further action to improve its efficiency or could be an indication that the asset should be replaced.
Preventive maintenance is a key practice in any Enterprise Asset Management program. This will greatly help in minimizing energy use which will eventually lead to reduction of a company’s carbon footprint.
Sustainability Resource Planning (SRP) from Verisae includes an asset management system to ensure that problem assets are identified and courses of action suggested, repairs initiated, and completed with the maximum possible efficiency. Verisae provides sustainable asset tracking and management for complex, global organizations. Learn more at Green articles
