Today I wanted to talk about an idea I had while I was working for an automotive parts manufacturing company in the United States. They had tons of automation everywhere (conveyors, fixtures, robots, transfers, etc...) to assemble parts for our clients and normally they had to work two shifts a day in most of the processes and because of the amount of automation that they had, it was better to always have all the equipment on and consuming energy in standby mode.
They told me that they had to do this because of the ammount of energy that was consumed when you turn on all of the processes, therefore it was better to keep them on all the time.
Although this is logical due to the current and voltage peak that will be generated when we turn on the equipment, however I knew that there could be a different solution to this situation that could result in a lower energy consumption.
What would happen if instead of turning on all of the processes at the same time and having that ammount of energy peak instead we progresively turn on one by one all of the equipment with an automated equipment (PLC with a customized control relay array).
A simple comparative of how the energy consumption rate will behave:
This is just an idea of how we can apply automation to reduce our cost and also help the environment.
So tell me:
How many of you could apply this type of controls and how much would this reduce your energy consumption rate?
Thanks again for following, please leave your comments below!
And remember: Everyday is a great day to improve.
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