The Alliance to Save Energy, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technologies Program, is developing a series of corporate energy management case studies. The majority of existing industrial energy literature provides technical discussions. These case studies examine the organizational and managerial aspects of implementing energy management in an industrial context. The cases assembled to date draw examples from a variety of industries and scales of operation.
- 3M: A corporate culture that emphasizes efficiency and waste minimization drives a 20 percent reduction in Btu per pound of product over a five-year period.
- C&A Floorcoverings: A small, privately-held manufacturer adopts the MSE 2000 energy management system, and achieves a ten percent savings in natural gas along the way.
- Continental Tire: Like most manufacturers that seek to control energy costs, Continental Tire’s Mt. Vernon, Il facility pondered a fundamental choice – partner with an energy consultant or use in-house staff and resources. Continental eventually did both, and to good effect – a 31 percent per tire energy-cost recuction.
- DuPont: Six Sigma methodologies applied to repetitive tasks becomes a yardstick for energy optimization… and for identifying over 75 improvement projects, each saving an average of $250,000 per year.
- Frito-Lay: An enormous task requires enormous goals. The food processing giant tackles the task of fuel, power, and water reduction at 44 plants and over 200 distribution centers. Energy initiatives in aggregate return over 30 percent return on investment.
- Kimberly Clark: How do you achieve an 11.7 percent reduction in energy consumed per ton of product across 165 to 170 plants? Read the Kimberly Clark case study.
- Merck & Co.: The pharmaceutical giant embraces energy efficiency as a way to generate more production from existing capacity. An additional reward is a 25 percent growth-adjusted reduction in energy expenses over a five year period.
- Mercury Marine: Two powerful features provide Mercury Marine with excellent energy managment results to date: consolidation of energy management under the authority of a Central Facilities Manager (CFM), and a power monitoring system that permits electricity costs to be tracked and billed to individual cost centers.
- Shaw Industries: Shaw Industries spent the latter half of 2004 developing basic energy efficiency solutions for its 53 manufacturing facilities. Using the U.S. Department of Energy BestPractices tools and resources, the Shaw corporate energy team systematically documentated potential conervations savings to the tune of $1 million per month through the latter half of 2004.
- Unilever: A simple spreadsheet for setting goals and tracking progress get staff on the same page for energy management at eight manufacturing facilities and other ancillary sites. Coordination saves $4 million over three years from a $26 million annual energy budget.
Contact:
Christopher Russell
Director, Industry Sector
(202) 530-2225
crussell@ase.org
