Lean, green manufacturing

Mar 20 2008 By The Journal

ONE NORTHEAST has seized the national lead in helping the region’s businesses cope with rising energy costs and reducing their carbon footprints. The regional development agency’s pioneering North East Productivity Alliance (NEPA) has introduced the concept of lean green manufacturing as part of its comprehensive business support package.

It has worked with more than 300 companies in the past four years, analysing their working practices and delivering significant productivity savings, as well as creating 76 new jobs and safeguarding a further 1,069 posts.

NEPA’s aim is to improve the performance of the North East’s manufacturing industry by focusing on removing waste, resulting in increased productivity and competitiveness. As a direct result of the project’s success, One NorthEast has added an Energy Resource Efficiency (ERE) project to its support portfolio.

The primary aim of the £5m ERE scheme is to help businesses tackle the serious issue of rising energy costs.

A team of specialist engineers from across the region are utilised via a panel under the guidance of industry specialist Allen Jones. The offering works with firms to develop an energy action plan, analysing current usage and highlighting innovative means to cut bills, all linked to increasing skills.

One NorthEast engaged with industry to discover exactly what was required to develop these two groundbreaking projects, which identify and remove waste from manufacturing.

Eighty organisations are working with the ERE programme, with 60 currently undertaking interventions.

ERE uses the same methodology as pioneered by NEPA’s lean project. The ERE programme aims to help:

:: Companies address energy as a controllable resource;

:: Identify potential opportunities focusing on energy;

:: Enable a reduction of energy consumption per unit produced;

:: Improve awareness on the effect of energy consumption on business finances and climate change;

:: Deliver opportunities to improve energy supply and use efficiency in tandem;

:: Embed skills to enable continuous improvement in energy management and utilisation;

:: Whole Business, Whole Workforce, promoting personal changes in the workplace and at home.

This package provides a unique methodology of assessing the energy use within a manufacturing organisation. The traditional approach focused on experts auditing a site and advising how all problems can be ‘fixed’. The new approach can also deliver this but targets facilitated self diagnosis, design and delivery. An early success is at North East company Geka Manufacturing. ERE experts identified that refining production processes in the plant would potentially cut its carbon emissions by around 300 tonnes per year and reduce energy bills by 20%.

That equates to over £35,000 a year in savings for the manufacturer.

Raymond Oliver, managing director of Geka, said: “The training given on energy issues through the ERE programme has provided some of our staff with the knowledge to improve in a number of areas. As a result of working with the ERE programme, we have saved 20% on our energy bills and reduced our carbon emissions dramatically, while supporting training and development of the people, in line with our strategy.”

Multinational companies are also taking advantage of the benefits presented by ERE. Global steel giant Corus Tubes Energy Business signed up to the programme as part of the company’s continuous improvement programme at its Hartlepool base.

ncjMedia

ncjMedia is also getting serious about energy conservation and working smarter.

Mike Thompson of IRIS Engineering, who carried out a survey of the Newcastle premises as part of the ERE project. As a result, one opportunity to save some and money was uncovered in the press hall, where newspapers are printed every day.

It was suggested that some cool air was needed to make conditions more bearable in the extremely hot room.

Air at a temperature of 21 degrees is pumped out of a vent, and air from outside taken in, cooled to a comfortable 14 degrees, and circulated round the press hall.

But what the survey found was that the warm air was being pumped out of a vent right next to the pipe taking cool air back into the building.

The result was the “cool” air was, in fact, the temperature of the air indoors when it was sucked into the cooling unit, meaning this unit had to work much harder to bring it back down to 14 degrees.

A plan for an exhaust duct has been drawn up and submitted for approval.

Once permission is granted, an exhaust pipe will direct the warm air up and away from where the cool air is being sucked in from outside.

The cooling unit won’t have to work so hard, because it will only be needed when the outside temperature is more than 14 degrees.

And all this will be saving the company money and helping the environment by conserving energy. It is estimated the cooling system will cost 66% less per year to run.

:: For more information on ERE, contact Allen Jones on (0191) 229-6559.

:: For more information on NEPA, contact Colin Herron on (0191) 229-6686.