We’re all guilty of this: fixing the immediate issue, ignoring the deeper problem. For example, your printer breaks down, so you just replace it, when the real problem is actually with the power you’re feeding into it.
Or you have a machine that’s burning out so you replace some parts without acknowledging that you’re overworking it.Our founder, Wayne R. Viehweg, said it best: “Forget trying to solve the problem of a single piece of equipment. If you do, you may simply cause other problems to pop up in other parts of your plant. (Call it, ‘Power Whack-A-Mole.’) Better to tackle the problem on a plant-wide basis.”
Let’s take a look at how you might be ignoring deeper power issues in your own facility, and what a solid and holistic plan of attack would look like.
In 2011, Taylor Dean, a principal at Structural Steel, encountered computer and printer malfunctions that escalated to affecting heavy equipment, causing significant productivity losses. So they started doing quick fixes. They bought back-up batteries for each computer and back-up power for the server—to no avail. Then the problem got worse. Like a virus, it started to infect their heavy equipment. Motherboards on machines started crashing and burning out. As a result, they were losing as much as a week of productivity every quarter.
Taylor noticed that it was only on certain days that specific pieces of equipment were going down. So Taylor brought in Electripure to do a power analysis on his facility. Through power bill analysis and plant metering, Electripure uncovered various power glitches, including excessive loading, harmonic distortions, and a low power factor. The problem wasn’t necessarily with the equipment itself, but with the facility’s power quality.
Electripure installed the CleanPQ system, an energy filter that cleans up harmonics present in the raw power coming into most facilities—and voila. They didn’t have even one piece of equipment go out from electrical failure after that point. No more waiting for new parts to arrive. No more having to reload the application software. No more re-inputting job data. So right there—according to Taylor—the company was avoiding about $30,000 a year in repairs.
Before the installation of Electripure's CleanPQ system, the company was consuming power at around $18,300 a month. After the first month, it dropped to $16,300, a savings of 11 percent—or a total of $24,000 during the first year.
There are many short-term benefits to installing the CleanPQ system that you will see immediately—and other benefits that you’ll see in the long run.
When you want to tackle the root problem of your equipment failures and malfunctions, there are a few great places to start that will set you down the right path. Once you’ve got a clear vision for what to do, you can start implementing solutions that will last in the long term.
If you’re fed up just fixing the small problems with your facility and want to start looking at the big picture—Electripure is ready to help. You can contact us today and one of our experts will come out to your facility for free to inspect your business operations. We can help lower your power bill by almost 20 percent, and help you get your money’s worth out of the power you’re paying for.