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12.20.2016

The Benefits of Integrating Energy Management Data with Production Data

With help from hardware and software technology stacks provided by our partners at Schneider Electric, Faith Technologies can provide a turn-key, integrated solution that allows energy efficiency and intensity to become an integrated part of the manufacturing plant floor.

Energy management allows companies to determine, improve, and continuously analyze their energy consumption. Energy Data Management Systems (EDMS) are technical in nature and are comprised of both hardware and software for the collection, visualization, and analysis of energy-related data. An EDMS enables regulation and control of energy consumption in plants and buildings. The end results are the enablement of:

  • Enhancement of corporate responsibility
  • Hitting corporate energy-efficiency and energy-intensity goals
  • Meeting government regulations and the potential receipt of federal, state and local incentives
  • Reduced operational and maintenance costs

As the saying goes, you can’t change what you cannot measure. And I would add, you cannot measure accurately unless you have all the data.

Implementing an integrated solution that also includes production data begins to tell a much more complete story of how energy is used and where. Sub-metering for Water, Air, Gas, Electricity, and Steam (WAGES) at the point of use is combined with:

  • Field level devices (motors/drives/instruments)
  • Control layer (programmable logic controllers/programmable automation controllers/distributed control systems)
  • The operator layer (database connectivity/Human Machine Interfaces (HMI).
  • The manufacturing operations management level, where energy data and equipment data combine for dashboard visualization, reporting, planning, and controlling in real time.

When integrating energy management or EDMS with production data or systems, the interface between different or disparate systems must be taken into consideration and well thought out. The manufacturing operations management level mentioned above, for instance, should communicate with the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) package of record, which coordinates the advanced production scheduling (APS) software. When integrating the APS with equipment for processing orders received from the ERP system, take into consideration any electricity or gas load shed strategies.

At the end of the day, all of the integrated systems will play into the dynamics of the manufacturing floor (e.g., machine utilization and downtime).