Situation
This client was firing up gas burners to bring chemical baths up to temperature without any monitoring. When operators arrived in the morning they immediately fired up burners. Burners were not turned off until the very end of the workday. Often bath temperatures were higher than required.
Process Improvements
CMI technology was implemented to capture baseline data on several chemical bath variables including temperature. Analysis of the temperature data indicated that tank burners were being fired up over 60 minutes sooner than required and being shut down over 30 minutes later than possible. As a result policies for start up and shut down were set saving over 1 hour per day of run time per burner. Also, an automatic alarming system was implemented to address bath temperature excesses.
Benefits Delivered
A six-figure reduction in annual energy consumption with no adverse impact on product quality.
