End Uses

Magnetic Pickups Reduce Compressed Air Demand at Automotive Plant

By Nasr Alkadi, Ph.D., CEM, CSRM, Strategic Energy Management Consultant and Coach, CLEAResult

This article focuses on a project to replace vacuum cups with spring-return magnetic pickups for handling ferrous metal parts at an automobile assembly plant in Missouri. The application is most familiar in automotive stamping and body shop operations, but the lesson applies to any plant using vacuum cups to grab steel blanks, panels, brackets or formed parts. The original equipment in this case study used vacuum cups served by venturi devices.

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Big Improvements at a Small Sawmill

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

Spruce Products Limited operates with five separate compressed air systems in their various buildings. A few years ago a sharp-eyed air compressor service representative noticed the screw compressors on site had less than optimal loading to operating hours ratios. Recognizing this was a problem, he suggested the company get in touch with their local power utility for a free compressed air scoping assessment. As a result, SPL has optimized two of their compressed air systems to-date, saving significant operating costs. One system is operating at 86% less energy consumption than previous levels.
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A Pulse Jet Dust Collector Optimization Study

By Russell Morine, Compressed Air Systems Evaluation Specialist, The Baker Group

A flour based frozen foods manufacturer orders a compressed air efficiency audit. The audit establishes the cost of compressed air at $0.27/1000 cubic feet. The study finds the 116 pulse jet dust collectors represent the greatest opportunity for compressed air demand reduction and energy cost savings. A dust collector optimization study/service is suggested and the customer agrees to proceed. In this facility, pulse jet dust collectors are used to filter dust from raw materials entering the plant, for conveying and mixing of ingredients, and for the final packaged finished products leaving the plant.
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Optimizing Today’s Pneumatic Systems

By Bill Nevills, Certified Fluid Power Specialist, Valin Corporation

In the last ten years, the design of pneumatic systems has changed dramatically, mainly due to developments in the technologies that create them. Pneumatic manufacturers’ online tools for sizing components have evolved, the fieldbus systems are ever-changing, component designs are constantly improving, and network devices such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) have reshaped the industry. All these advances play a large role in optimizing the efficiency of pneumatic systems, but the age-old practice of routine maintenance must not be overlooked. This article will focus on proper air compressor sizing, proper pneumatic component sizing and predictable preventative maintenance.
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Missed Demand-Side Opportunities Part 3 - Controlling Open Blowing with Compressed Air

By Hank van Ormer, Contributing Editor

In this series we covered some very common issues in the Compressed Air Generation or “Supply Side” with regard to misapplying some capacity controls and installing different types of air compressors with piping and/ or orientation. These can preclude any reduction in compressed air demand on the production side from effectively translating lower air usage into a commensurate level input energy.
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Correctly Solving Low Air Pressure Problems

By Paul Edwards, President, Compressed Air Consultants, Inc.

One of the most common problems in plants is low air pressure. One of the most common solutions is to purchase new air compressors. Often this advice leads to a poor return on investment with the company’s hard-earned money. Often the issues are related to demand, distribution, or both. Solving the wrong problem can be expensive from a capital and operating cost perspective. Determining root cause analysis may cost more up front, but will save tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars long term.
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Zinc Producer Reduces Compressed Air Use by 1,090 scfm

By Don van Ormer, Air Power USA

A zinc producer spends an estimated $516,000 annually on electricity to operate the air compressors in a compressed air system at its north American plant. The current average electric rate, at this plant, is 5 cents per kWh, and the compressed air system operates 8,760 hours per year. This system assessment recommended a group of projects able to reduce these energy costs by fifty-one percent (51%) to an annualized $270,000. The simple payback of the project was 15 months – without taking into account potential incentive dollars from the local utility.
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Great Plains and Air Capital Equipment Monitor Great Savings

By Nicolas De Deken, EnergAir

Great Plains has carved a global reputation for producing world-class seeding equipment since it first opened its doors in 1976. Great Plains manufactures a range of products from grain drills and planters, to compact drills and tillage equipment. They have established an international business built on expertise, knowledge and a commitment to producing products meeting the rigorous demands of the agricultural sector.
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Compressed Air Assessment Finds Problems at a Meat Processor

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

A meat processor, located in Canada, hired a consultant to assess their compressed air system as part of a company-wide energy conservation effort. The assessment and analysis showed, despite having a modern compressed air system using a VSD air compressor and pressure/flow control, the system was running inefficiently and had significant levels of leakage and inappropriate use.
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Compressed Air Audit Discovers Problems at Electronics Firm

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

An electronics manufacturer with a very large compressed air system recently had a compressed air audit done in their plant to assess system efficiency. The audit discovered the system had been designed to be extremely efficient, yet some previously undetected problems were causing less than optimal operation. Despite being located in a tropical environment, this plant utilizes heat recovery to help reduce the overall energy consumption.
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End Use Focus Improves Efficiency at Parrheim Foods

By Ron Marshall, Marshall Compressed Air Consulting

Parrheim Foods, a division of Parrish and Heimbecker, is an innovative starch, protein and fiber mill situated in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The plant has improved system efficiency and reduced production problems by addressing some problems with the consumption of compressed air by their reverse pulse baghouse cleaning operations. This effort has allowed them to turn off one of their 100 hp air compressors, saving significant electricity costs.
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Making Sense of Compressed Air at a Huge Chemical Plant

By Don van Ormer, APEnergy

A chemical plant spends an estimated $587,000 annually on electrical energy to operate their compressed air system. In addition, the plant has an expenditure on rental air compressors of equal or greater size - but this will not be covered in this article. The plant was built in the 1940s and modernized in the 1970s. The plant generates its own power and serves many processes. The average cost per kWh is $0.0359.
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Compressed Air Savings with Nozzles or Blowers

By Consumers Energy Business Solutions

Compressed air is used as a convenient and often necessary source of air flow to perform blow-offs, cooling, or drying. And since compressed air is a costly utility, a frequent recommendation in this magazine and audits is to reduce the compressed air use by using high efficiency engineered nozzles. Using these nozzles is a good practice as they are designed in a way that uses the compressed air to accelerate the surrounding air to deliver the same mass transfer effect as a standard nozzle (or tube) with a much larger orifice.
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Plastic Extruder Optimizes Blow-Offs for Cooling

By Hank van Ormer, Air Power USA

At a Midwest window manufacturing plant, the cooling process for the plastic frame pieces, after leaving the extruder, was critical to process productivity and quality. Too much cooling air (or not enough cooling air) would generate scrap and rejected product. The plants’ 17 extruders and 55 separate blow-offs in these lines had similar cooling stations at the cooling boxes. They consisted of about three hoses at each exit frame angled down to the extruded piece moving past it. The compressed air flow was controlled by a manual control valve set by an operator. The operator used his experience to control the flow delivered and thereby control the product quality.
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Poultry Plant Reduces Compressed Air Use by 44%

By Don van Ormer, APenergy

A major poultry processor and packager spends an estimated $96,374 annually on energy to operate the compressed air system at its plant located in a southern U.S. state. The current average electric rate, at this plant, is 8 cents per kWh.
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Kaeser’s Uniform Focus on System Specific Power Benefits UniFirst

By Roderick Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

UniFirst is one of North America’s largest workwear and textile service companies. They outfit nearly two million workers in clean uniforms and protective clothing each workday. Founded in an eight-stall garage in 1936, the Company has grown to 240 customer servicing locations throughout the U.S. and Canada servicing 300,000 business customer locations. The subject of this article is an energy-saving Air Demand Analysis (ADA), conducted by Kaeser Compressors, at UniFirst’s centralized 320,000 square foot hub Distribution Center located in Owensboro, Kentucky.
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Utility Energy Efficiency Program Viewpoint - Calculating Project Savings: Vortex Vacuum Generators and Outside Air Intake

By Jerry Zolkowski, PE, CEM, Senior Engineer, Consumers Business Energy Efficiency Solutions

The intent of this article is to provide readers with simple examples of calculations one can perform to evaluate two sample energy efficiency projects for compressed air systems; pressure sensing vortex vacuum generators and outside air intake (for air compressors).
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German Lab Relies upon Water-injected Oil-free Air Compressor

By Martina Bopp

Rotary screw air compressor that makes its own lubricant from the surrounding air delivers oil-free compressed air to an environmental laboratory in Stuttgart, Germany - Many sensitive sectors of industry require oil-free compressed air. However, meeting this demand is often not as simple as it sounds. One way is to use oil-injected air compressors with downstream air treatment to meet the demand. A second option is oil-free air compressors, which operate without lubricants. Both versions have their own advantages as well as risks. Another alternative is to use rotary screw air compressors that use water as a lubricant.
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Control Panel Cooling Change Saves Compressed Air Electrical Costs

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

As a result of compressed air awareness training and a focus on energy management, two facilities in different parts of the world have reduced their compressed air demand substantially by removing vortex style cabinet coolers from some of their electrical panels and reworking the cooling systems. These facilities were previously unaware of the high cost of compressed air and how much could be saved if other methods of cooling were used. This article describes some of their efforts in demand reduction.
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Lantech Case Erectors Engineered for Compressed Air Efficiency

By Mike Castelli, Director Global Business Development, Case Handling Products, Lantech

Energy, in all forms, has always been a key Lantech focus. It was, in fact, a key element of the core packaging problem the company’s founders set out to address. They saw an opportunity to capitalize on an inexpensive and under-used resource – stretch film – to displace a high materials cost and energy intensive way of unitizing pallet loads of products – shrink bagging.
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Systems Approach Cuts Fabric Mill Energy Costs

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

A large fabric mill has implemented an energy management system based on the ISO 50001 standard to track their compressed air system efficiency. As a result of information gained from this system, and measures learned in some recent compressed air training, the company has reduced their compressed air system costs while at the same time achieving increased fabric production output. The savings were gained by not only optimizing the supply side of the system, but by also addressing the end uses.
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Don’t Skip the Most Important Meeting of Your Energy Project

By John Molnar, Rogers Machinery Company

In many parts of the country—and especially the Pacific Northwest—interest has surged in completing energy-saving compressed air system upgrades. The financial assistance from incentive programs, combined with the falling costs of efficiency-increasing technology, has made these projects very attractive to all those involved. The benefits for society, power companies and customers are immense.
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Cooking Oil Factory Combines Compressed Air Systems to Save 36%

By Ron Marshall for Compressed Air Challenge®

To produce healthy, high-quality cooking oil, this food processing company crushes and processes oil seeds shipped in from local farms. The oil produced is thought to be the healthiest cooking oil available, because it is low in saturated fat, high in monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA), and polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), like omega-3 fatty acids. To increase the energy efficiency of its oil seed crushing and processing facility, the company optimized its compressed air system by combining three separate systems into one. Some end-use optimization was done to correct low pressure, particularly caused by some critical high-flow, short-duration events.
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Innovative Blow Molds Reduce Compressed Air Pressure in PET Blow Molding

By Vincent Duvernois, Partner – SKV Services, Stephane Larcade, President – SKV Services, and Jean Pilnard, Export Manager – COMEP

Technological trends in plastics manufacturing are driving the costs of production down. In industrial PET blow molding specifically, two innovative techniques have had major impacts over the last 15 years: “light weighting” the plastic bottles, and recirculating high-pressure compressed air. Both have helped to improve the energy efficiency of PET blow molding by reducing compressed air requirements dramatically.
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PET Power Containers and Compressors aiR Us Design Plant Expansion

By Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

PET Power Containers, a Canadian manufacturer of PET plastic containers, had plans for expanding its operations with the addition of more blow-molding equipment. Before the expansion could happen, however, the company needed to assess its compressed air system. Based in Vaughan, Ontario, PET Power provides a dizzying array of differently shaped and sized plastic bottles. Their operations run 24/7, and compressed air plays a key role in their primary manufacturing applications, including PET blow molding, PET preforming, and labeling bottles.
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Fiberglass Parts Plant Finds Savings Beyond the Air Compressor Room

By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge®

A Canadian fiberglass plant has completed a lengthy compressed air improvement journey and achieved significant efficiency gains by applying “the systems approach.” Along the way, the company ran across many frustrating problems, the solutions to which were only determined after the entire system was monitored holistically using data loggers. The overall compressed air audit led to a reduction in energy usage of 48 percent, yielding savings worth $17,500 per year. The project also qualified for a large utility incentive of $32,000 with a calculated payback of 4.4 years.
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