Twenty-Five Frequently Asked
Questions
1.
Is the
assessment really at NO-COST to my
plant? Essentially, Yes. The only cost you incur is that of providing
us copies of the actual utility bills received over the past twelve months plus
the waste-related information detailed in the second paragraph of the cover
letter you received. There is never an
invoice or bill sent to your plant for any costs related to the assessment
visit or the report that results.
2.
How then is
this service paid for? The US Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial
Technologies Program provides contracts to a total of 26 University-based
centers that are part of the IAC program, one of which is
3.
Seriously, you
must be selling something, or will expect a share of the savings, right?
Unequivocally, No. There are no
goods or services that are bought and sold, no shared savings (the savings stay
with you 100%), and we are forbidden by the terms of our contract with the DOE
to do consultant work with program participants for a period of at least two
years.
4.
What is the
purpose of the IAC assessments? To make specific recommendations to the small
to medium-sized manufacturing plants in the service area of the IAC concerning
energy cost reduction, waste cost reduction, and productivity enhancing
practices that they can implement.
Further, the students who work in the program gain valuable industrial
experience.
5.
What do you
mean, small to medium-sized, and why is this so? From its
inception in 1976 the program was developed to help manufacturing plants
meeting the DOE’s definition of this term, and the current criteria used to
establish this is given on the upper-right, on the inside, of our small
brochure that is a part of the packet you receive by calling Jim Eggebrecht at 979-845-1508. Please note--Each manufacturing plant site
qualifies on its own basis, not on a corporate total. Multiple sites of a larger corporation could
each qualify for the program on their own individual merits. The DOE has chosen
this sector of manufacturing plants to benefit from this assistance for a
number of reasons. Plants meeting these
criteria usually are not able to afford the assistance of consultants or the
staff necessary to do similar assessments, and consequently could be
ill-informed of the benefits. This
program brings the knowledge of “good practices” in the realm of energy
conservation to the vast segment of US manufacturing capability that otherwise
could not afford the assistance. This
size of plant is also often easier for the assessment team to handle in the
time scale that is available.
6.
What do the students
gain from the program? First and foremost, some very valuable
industrial experience. The plant
equipment seen in operation is no longer a device evaluated in a homework
problem, but a real piece of working machinery.
After graduation they take this experience with them and are better
educated about the impact of energy-related decisions in their everyday
careers. And as an immediate practical
matter for them--they are paid wages, and work as part of a team to gather data
and prepare the reports.
7.
Is the work
the students do part of a classroom assignment or homework? No, it is
not. As mentioned earlier, they are paid
wages as employees of the university, and the report that results is a
professional product, not a homework assignment turned in for a grade in a
class.
8.
How many
students will come to my site, and who is the leader of this group? We typically
bring between four to six (usually five) students to each assessment site
visit. The professional leading the
group will either be Dr. Warren M. Heffington, the IAC Director,
9.
What
experience do the professional members of the group possess? Dr.
Heffington is the founding Director of the center at
10.
What
experience will the student team members possess? We operate
with about 12 students at any one time that are a part of the IAC, and at the
start of most semesters have newly hired between one and three students to
replace those that have graduated from the university the previous
semester. Most students stay with the
IAC for many semesters, often until graduation, and have some considerable
experience established as a result.
11.
On the typical
site visit day, what happens? The assessments typically take place on
Fridays, and we time our arrival at your plant to occur about 8:15 AM. We will then want to meet with you about the
energy information you will have sent to us, and learn about plant production
operations, which usually takes from one to one-and-a-half hours. This is followed by a tour of the plant where
we see your product made in sequential steps, and the equipment used to perform
the production operations. A session of
brain-storming the projects that will be evaluated takes place, and then the
responsibility to gather data for the evaluation is assigned to a specific
student. Data gathering usually finishes
about 3 – 4 PM, when we end the day with a short, 15 – 20 minute meeting with
you to discuss the data collected, preliminary results, and ask any final
questions.
12.
How will the
site visit day affect me, how will it interrupt my day? We naturally
need you to be with us in the morning meeting to review the utility data and
provide the information on plant operations.
During the plant tour we will want to witness a representative
production process, the major energy using equipment, and how and where waste
is handled, so there is time required for this.
Your time spent in our brain-storming session is very welcome and useful
for refining our ideas, but is not universally necessary. Generally after this, the students and
professional leader will be in the plant gathering data until the end of the
day. There are sporadic questions to
answer during this time requiring your assistance, or of
others who are familiar with the project being studied. Most plants allow us to roam the facility as
need be without any escorts which reduces the plant personnel time that is
taken up.
13.
What safety
training is provided to the students? Every student is given our safety training
before joining the team. This training
comes from our experience in conducting hundreds of these assessments without
injury, and is also gleaned from the safety training of plants we visit who
have provided their own input to assist us of informing the team of unique
situations in the plants.
14.
Do you only
look at our electrical energy usage? No, we also evaluate the usage of natural
gas for economy measures too. In
addition to the focus on energy usage, we study the waste generation and
handling practices to find ways to minimize these, and also the productivity
issues that may reduce the cost of your production or increase the amount of
production.
15.
How detailed
and specific to my plant will the report be? The reports are very specific
to your plant. These are not “off-the-shelf
boilerplates” that are generic and general ideas, but are projects specific for
your operations. The data used in the
calculations is measured in your plant, and the recommendations determine
the savings impact and implementation costs needed for you to effect the
appropriate changes to your practices or equipment.
16.
What
measurements are taken, and does this involve shutting down equipment or
production lines? The measurements taken depend on the nature
of the project. For instance, we carry
the instruments to make measurements such as the combustion efficiency of fired
heaters (boilers, furnaces, etc.), the operation of steam traps, temperatures,
velocity of moving air streams, motor and lights on-off times, for finding
compressed air leaks, and others. For
all these measurements it is not necessary to change your plant
operations. We may perform a compressed
air system leakage test during your site visit that involves turning off the
air compressor and timing a drop of ten pounds pressure off of your air system. This test is usually done during the lunch
break of your plant if it can be done without affecting continuous
operations. Other than this usually very
short test there should not be any disruptions to the normal, everyday plant
operations.
17.
Do members of
the assessment team operate or adjust any of my plant equipment? Absolutely
not. We will touch no controls or
switches at your site except for the light switch in the conference room you
have us to use while we are at your site.
During the air system leakage test it will be you that operates the
switches to turn off and then back on the air compressor and we will be reading
the pressure gauge.
18.
How are the
utility bills, waste information, and other information that is gathered
handled by the assessment team? The information is treated confidentially
for our use only in completing the site visit, the report, and the program
needs of the IAC program. Some
information relating to the recommendations made and the savings determined,
plus other information from the report are uploaded into the national IAC
database that is maintained by the program manager for the DOE, the Center for
Advanced Energy Systems at
19.
Who gets a copy
of the report? We routinely send you two copies of the
formal, bound report, Dr. Heffington and
20.
What about the
quality checking of the report before it is sent to the plant? The student
assigned to be the team leader for an assessment completes the first draft by
three weeks after the site visit. This
is then reviewed by the professional who led the study, and it is passed back
to the student for corrections, additions, changes, etc. Typically there are a total of three such
review steps before the plant is mailed the final report.
21.
How many
reports and visits do you make in a year? The number is between 25 – 30, and is usually 27 visits each fiscal year
that stretches from September 1 of one year to August 31 of the next. There are about 10 in the fall semester, 12
in the spring, and the remainder in the summer.
22.
What are some
typical savings results? We visit a wide variety of plants, but the
following are the average numbers: Number
of project recommendations per report—8.
Total recommended savings per report--$89,000/year. Percentage of energy costs saved by
recommendations—11%.
23.
What do you
know about the implementation of the recommended projects? For every
visit we call back to the plant 6 – 9 months after they have had the report,
and ask them what projects have been implemented. Historically, plants implement about 62% of
the recommended projects. To date the
information suggests that plants have spent a total of about $17,000,000 to
affect the annual savings of over $21,000,000/year.
24.
What are some
typical comments you receive from the plants about your reports? We ask, and
they tell us, that the reports are “very helpful” or “helpful.” Many times the additional comments are along
the lines of “It was nice to have a fresh pair of eyes view what we do here and
suggest improvements,” or, “the team was very professional in their approach
and the report was well written and understandable.” They often recommend other plants in the area
we should call on to offer this no-cost
service. A number of times we have been
asked to come back to the same plant many years after the original visit, or to
visit other plants operated by the same companies.
25.
How soon after
the site visit day do I receive the report? By our contract with the DOE
we have to send the report by 60 days after the site visit. Our actual average is about 50 days. Therefore the report shows up within a
relatively short time.