by David McGiverin

    An assessment of the potential for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to enhance food safety and traceability is the goal of a pilot project now underway under the joint direction of the Northwest Food Processors Education & Research Institute (ERI) and Oregon State University (OSU).

   Two food processors – one in Oregon and the other in Washington – have been selected as partners in a USDA / Oregon and Washington Department of Agriculture Specialty Crop grant project. The identity of the pilot plants (designated Oregon A and Washington B) will not be publicly released.

   Both participating plants are providing a working environment for the project and assistance in (1) setting up and testing the traceability system; (2) collecting required data; (3) evaluating system performance compared to their existing internal traceability system.

   This fall (2010) we plan to have final scoping of each individual project completed along with identification of appropriate software, hardware and training required to smoothly integrate RFID at both project site locations.

Areas of Research:

• Improved food safety and traceability
• Improved efficiency in receiving, shipping, ordering, and inventory
• Improved visibility into inventory levels, status and product history

Initial Scope:

   At Plant A we plan to research and test the use of RFID for improved productivity by capturing and transferring data from the food processing plant to the cold storage facility (finished product to storage). The research should provide significant insight into the benefits of and barriers to adopting the use of RFID in a food processing productivity
setting.

   At Plant B, we are researching the potential to improve traceability from the farm field to the food processing plant (inbound raw materials). We see great potential in discovering what overall benefits RFID technology might have on food processing plants and on the supply chain, delivering real time information for better decision making.

Power of Collaboration:

• OSU’s RFID Food Applications Laboratory and a RFID system integrator will provide expert technical support to set up and test the traceability systems, under the auspices of participant plant operations management.
• Collaboration with a dedicated stakeholder team from ERI, OSU, RFID Systems Integrator, OR Department of Agriculture and WA State Department of Agriculture.

   This is one of the many projects underway by the Northwest Food Processors Education & Research Institute to help the food processing industry succeed with innovative approaches and technologies applied to real world problems and opportunities. For more information, please contact me at dmcgiverin@foodipc.com

by Scott Waggoner

   Last month we talked about engaging your customers in business success by utilizing social media communities like Facebook and Twitter.  This month we’re taking this concept a step further, exploring ways to use online communities to enhance corporate innovation. This cutting-edge approach to innovation is especially valuable in the Pacific Northwest, home to a uniquely creative and tech-savvy population.  These individuals congregate in urban centers throughout the three-state area, where they are employed by some of the largest high-tech companies in the world: Microsoft, Intel and Boeing, to name a few.  Food processors can reap the benefits of this deep pool of creative, well-educated talents by effectively engaging online communities.

   Some Pacific Northwest food processing companies are already tapping into online communities to enhance their in-house innovation efforts.  Jones Soda and Kettle Chips are companies that have recently become household names by tapping non-traditional value-added markets, focused on presenting the customer with a unique experience or interesting alternative.  They both produce traditional products that are household staples, but are most known for flavorings that are anything but traditional.  Kettle Chips annually holds a “Create-a-Chip” challenge, driven by social media, which taps customer creativity to craft daring new products. Kettle’s Tuscan Three Cheese, Fully-Loaded Baked Potato, Cheddar Beef, and Spicy Thai potato chips were all invented from recent Create-a-Chip challenges.  Jones Soda has become famous for holiday flavors inspired by customers such as Turkey & Gravy, Candy Cane, Jelly Doughnut, and Pumpkin Pie.  Jones Soda bottles often feature pictures of customers, and anyone can order custom-labeled products at  www.myjones.com.

   Many other companies see the potential benefits from engaging these creative communities through online crowdsourcing. 

• Kraft Foods - www.innovatewithkraft.com,  
• General Mills - openinnovation.generalmills.com,    
• Campbell’s - www.campbellideas.com

   These three are just a few examples of big corporations openly asking their customers and the community at large to share their ideas about products.  These websites are often designed to engage the workforce and suppliers in addition to the customer base or general public.  An added benefit of online engagement is that it reduces a customer perception of the brand being aloof and unresponsive, and promotes the idea that customers can influence and have a stake in the brand.  Pepsi’s Mountain Dew unit recently took this strategy to an even higher level.  In a year-long, seven-stage campaign, the Mountain Dew team used Facebook to ask customers for their new flavor ideas, let the community choose 10 designs, selected three of those designs to turn into products, brought the three winners in to work with the development team, released the three products, and finally had consumers vote for the one to keep online at www.dewmocracy.com. They revealed the flavor voting at the national, state and county level, letting consumers see how their community voted.  Unlike traditional campaigns, the Mountain Dew team was willing to admit that consumers have a stake in the brand and let them help design the product marketing.

   This process of online customer engagement for innovation is called developing a virtual customer environment (VCE). While a VCE is often perceived as a tool for gathering initial product ideas, a successful VCE engages the customer throughout the product development process.  As opposed to releasing products in a process of trial and error, products can slowly be developed and test marketed with your existing consumer base at significantly less cost than traditional new product development processes. Better still, it provides benefits as both a key marketing tool and a method for building a loyal consumer base.

   NWFPA can assist you in designing your own virtual customer environment. Call us at 503.327.2200 for more info.

by Jim Seufert

    Do you see piles of product on the floor of your plant?

   Those are literally piles of cash.

   A little trickle of product falling off of a belt can quickly accumulate into hundreds of dollars of lost product. Some processors call this product spillage or product leakage – product that doesn’t make it to the intended destination, whether it’s the next stage of the process or into the final package.

   In assessing the magnitude of this potential problem, it’s important to think about the cost of your incoming raw materials as well as the value of your finished sellable products. For processors IPC has been conducting research with, incoming raw materials can cost anywhere from 25 cents a pound to nearly one dollar per pound. Finished product values range from there up to several dollars per pound.

   We’ve seen mounds of product three feet tall in some plants. This is just from a few hours of production at one leaking point. If you collect all leaked product from across your plant for one day’s production, how many pounds would you gather? A few hundred pounds? A few thousand pounds? And what is this product worth - $100? $500? More?

   At a leak rate of just $100 per day, you would be losing more than $30,000 a year. If you estimate that you’re leaking $1,000 of product per day that would total more than $300,000 a year.

   And this amount represents only the value of the lost product. Product leakage also increases other costs, including labor to collect and dispose of the product, potential product disposal charges, and additional waste water treatment expenses for some processors.

   The good news: Fixing product leaks is a common and relatively inexpensive problem to solve. Here are some effective real-world solutions:

• Many leaks can be fixed with simple tin work.
• Some plants have installed optical sensors to stop belts or other processes when excess product accumulates.
• Other times, belts need alignment and belt speeds need synchronizing.
• In other situations, we’ve identified issues with machine maintenance – where critical wear components require replacing.

We’ve also seen instances where standard operating procedures aren’t followed, or are not known. These could be as simple as adjusting belt speeds for each type of product that is running.

   Identifying the product spillage challenges in your plant is easy – simply walk through your plant after it’s been running a few hours. Take a camera to document what you find. Talk to the line operators. They see what happens everyday. Create a master list of opportunities and have your maintenance crew start working down the list as they have available time.

   We’ve seen plants go from having their sanitation crew clean the floor at every break, to not needing any clean up throughout and entire shift. The plant is safer, workers can focus on adding value, and product yields improve. Everybody wins.

   To learn more about eliminating product spillage in your plant, contact IPC’s Jim Seufert at jseufert@foodipc.org.

by Scott Waggoner

    Changes in China are presenting significant opportunities for food processors across the Pacific, particularly here in the western United States.  Over the past 30 years China has become the world’s fastest growing major economy, largest exporter, second largest importer, and this summer took the title of Top Energy Consumer from the United States.  As China transitions to a market-based economy and many of its people move from agrarian to urban based employment, China is increasing its standard of living and adopting a consumerist culture.  The worlds’ most populated nation is starting to demand quality and new product concepts in food products which the western world can provide. Consumers are buying in kiosks, restaurants, and “hypermarkets” and are increasingly seeking new products and attractive packaging.

   This year, wages are rising rapidly throughout the country, along with public demands for a higher standard of living.  Since a labor contract law in 2008 made workers more aware of their rights, labor costs have increased about 15 percent a year.  The Chinese government has embraced the labor actions and resulting increases in salaries, as they are trying to transform China’s economy into an Americanized one focused on domestic consumption.  Beijing is also now allowing the U.S. dollar to appreciate (increasing costs in the Chinese yuan) and in 2007 failed to renew tax preferences for foreign companies. 

   As urbanization and increased spending power separates producers from consumers with a decline in traditional street markets in favor of supermarkets and restaurants, the interest and demand for value-added foods increases.  Interestingly, anything Western holds a luxury status that Chinese people are increasingly demanding and are able to afford.

   These changes present some significant, emerging opportunities for northwest food processors who take advantage of these changing conditions. While in the past, the Chinese have been slow to adopt Western consumer activities, now it is occurring and traditional expenditures such as food are expected to be one of the first markets where American value-added goods can gain significant market share. The Pacific Northwest, in particular, has the opportunity to fulfill these demands due to proximity and well-established trade routes. Increased living standards also mean that supplies purchased from China, such as ingredients and packaging materials, are likely to increase in price and offer domestic suppliers new opportunities to compete.  Increase standards of living are occurring worldwide and demands rethinking the supply chain, with domestic suppliers standing to gain.

   In summary, now is the time for northwest food processors to take a fresh look at the opportunities presented by China’s significant economic developments and to develop new ways for beneficial trade with China as well as strengthening our own supplier base.

   For more information on exporting opportunities, visit the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service website at www.usdachina.org.

by Jon Marshall

   It is a misconception to think that all innovation starts with a new idea. Although spontaneous ideas happen, and many books and companies use a light-bulb to depict that creative moment of innovation, there is a better process to assure innovation is relevant, needed, and will be robust.

   A simple, three-phase process will help you innovate better:

Phase 1 – Immersion & Study
   Immerse yourself in the problem to be solved or the opportunity to be exploited. Learn about and characterize the innovation challenge in two dimensions. One dimension is learning about the problem itself – all aspects of it. The second dimension is to collect a variety of general solution approaches. Not specific ideas, but general ways the problem could be solved. This is a research and study phase and the result is a well-developed and articulated problem statement plus a set of candidate approaches to be further developed.

Phase 2 – Developing Intuition and New Connections
   This is the time to let your brain and the collective brains of others soak in the fragments of information you have collected in the study phase. Partly it is a time to “cook & stew” about the problem. It is also a time to test and experiment with your understanding of the problem and the characteristics, pros and cons of your potential solutions. As you go you will make new connections and new insights will emerge. This is the time to employ the Medici Effect – that is, involve others from completely different fields into your discussions about the problem and the information you have. You should purposely seek a variety of inputs from others who have expertise, but not in your field. This is where you get “cross-fertilization.” It is also the time to explore and test hypotheses – your trial balloons – to learn from them and develop your intuition about the innovation area. The end result should be a set of two to five well-formed alternative approaches to the innovation challenge.

   Innovation can be fun, but it also requires the discipline to complete these preliminary steps so that your resulting ideas are well-grounded and backed by both due diligence and a multi-perspective view of the problem. Your result will be a better, more relevant, more stable innovation with reduced risk and much improved team buy-in.

   For more information on this approach to innovation, contact Jon Marshall at jmarshall@nwfpa.org. The Northwest Food Processors Innovation Productivity Center exists to help you prosper with innovation.

by Rosi Marshall

    Failure has a bad reputation in the business world – generally for good reasons. But are there some types of failure you should reward and some you should not reward?

   We know that companies must continually adapt to survive. That means change, and change means trying something new, being willing to fail and trying again. Not all new ventures will be a hit, not all new products will be stars. But these failures can lead to breakthroughs and great insights. Unless a company is willing to risk failure, the outcome is preordained: mediocrity or stagnation. Without change, learning and growth, companies are doomed to become irrelevant. Stephen Covey’s book The Speed of Trust offers an incisive take on the value of learning from personal failures, noting that those who never go out on a limb never pluck the fresh fruit. After all, how many times did Babe Ruth fail to connect with the ball? Adds John Gardner, author of “Excellence and Self Renewal,” “One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure”.

   Corporate leaders set the tone when it comes to willingness to experiment and tolerance for creative failure. If employees learn that creativity is rewarded, they become willing express new ideas and suggest things that might be counter to the status quo. New ideas are fragile things and crumble easily at a hint of leadership disapproval. Yet they’re so essential to long-term corporate success. After all, how many companies remain competitive with only their original hit product or service? The recent downsizing of Blockbuster in response to the more successful tactics of competitors like Netflix and Red Box is a powerful illustration of this “change or die” reality. Jeffrey Imelt, CEO of GE, said “Constant reinvention is the central necessity at GE… We’re all just a moment away from commodity hell.”

   So, how do you succeed through failure? When you give people the freedom to succeed, you must grant them the freedom to fail. Distinguish between honorable failure – an honest attempt at something new and different – and incompetent failure – failure through lack of effort or competence. Praise innovators for their efforts, even if they fail, as long as it was honorable failure and learning occurred. Make sure employees know that honorable failures will not be criticized.

   Seth Godin’s blog offers a hierarchy of failure. As his list illustrates, not all failures are the same:

• Fail Often: Ideas that challenge the status quo. Proposals. Brainstorms. Concepts that open doors.
• Fail Frequently: Prototypes. Spreadsheets. Sample ads and copy.
• Fail Occasionally: Working mockups. Play testing sessions. Board meetings.
• Fail Rarely: Interactions with small groups of actual users and customers.
• Fail Never: Keeping promises to your constituents.

   In their rush to play it safe and their urgency to salvage everything in the face of an emergency, most organizations do precisely the opposite. They throw their customers or their people under the bus ("we had no choice") but rarely take the proactive steps necessary to fail quietly, and often, in private, in advance, while there's still time to make things better.“Better to have a difficult conversation now than a failed customer interaction later.”

   So, as you review your own personal and company responses to your employees, think about the message you are sending to your employees and be sure you recognize and encourage honorable failures.

by Jim Seufert

   Looking for an easy way to communicate overall plant performance to everyone in your operation? The Objectives Matrix can measure key operational indicators and summarize them into a one-number score of your plant operations.

   Many food processing plant operations are managed using detailed daily and weekly production logs, and annual planning reports. Based on research compiled during work with more than 30 regional food plants, many operations lack awareness of how daily operations get them closer to annual goals. This middle ground is frequently overlooked.

   Northwest Food Processors Innovation Productivity Center has been testing a succinct reporting format that captures that middle ground between daily/weekly production and annual planning. It rolls up monthly operational accomplishments into an easy–to-understand one-page synopsis. It also summarizes overall performance with one number, and quantifies the dollar savings achieved each month.

   This reporting tool, the Objectives Matrix, has been developed and refined by IPC’s Glenn Felix over the last 25 years. Through our research and real-world application at regional food processing plants, we have found that operational performance can be characterized by measuring 6-8 key operational facets:

• Pounds produced per labor hour
• Overtime percentages
• Raw product recovery
• Finished product giveaway/ over-weights
• Rework rates
• Waste packages (film, cans, bottles, etc.)
• Equipment downtime percentages
• Energy intensity (BTUs consumed per pound produced)
• Gallons of water consumed per pound produced
 

Creating an Objectives Matrix is a straightforward process:

1. Agree on measures of day-to-day performance that hold the greatest potential for improving plant profitability
2. Determine how the plant is currently performing to those measures by looking at historical data
3. Set ambitious long-range targets
4. Quantify the dollar savings potential of achieving those long range targets
5. Weight and prioritize the performance measures using dollar savings potential
6. Set up the Objectives Matrix in an Excel workbook
7. Deploy the measurement system

   Plants typically launch a small project team to gather and evaluate the data behind the measures, and to participate in monthly review meetings. The ongoing meetings are important because this is where you discuss ways to improve performance and launch projects to address specific opportunities.

   After deploying the Objectives Matrix, one plant is saving more than $80,000 per month by focusing on overtime and product giveaway. Another plant just implemented the Objectives Matrix and could save up to $3 million per season when they achieve their product recovery and labor effectiveness targets.

   As a general guideline, many plants identify savings opportunities totaling $1,000 per employee per month. Therefore a plant that employs 50 people could set targets that identify $50,000 of savings opportunity per month.

   The beauty of the Objectives Matrix is that it generates real savings with no capital investment. For example, the above-referenced product giveaway reductions were achieved through a renewed focus and discipline on fill weights and machine settings. No plant equipment improvements were required.

   Contact Jim Seufert at jseufert@foodipc.org to learn more about the Objectives Matrix and how to implement it in your plant.

by David McGiverin

   The first time I watched improvisational (improv) comedy, I was fascinated – all I could think was, these folks are extremely intelligent. Improv comedians obviously have a lot of innate talent, but clearly have also devoted many hours to dedicated practice to hone their craft.

   You’re probably asking yourself, what does improv have to do with food processing? As challenges mount in our industry, we need to start thinking about conducting business differently. Most companies know something has to change, but what? It starts with self-reflection and imagination, posing questions that will help you find a new vision, a new competitiveness and new markets. Ideas – lots and lots of ideas – fuel innovation. And from this creative chaos of ideas comes order – a new focus that will make you more effective. Traditional methods of generating ideas, such as brainstorming, can be effective – but are they good enough? Can improv stimulate the process of creativity?

   As crazy as it sounds, as I was watching these improv comedians at work, it made me wonder: what would happen if a company incorporated improv techniques, and even improv professionals – into their product development, marketing or other creative processes? Would this open up entirely new creative vistas? Would it have the potential to change the deeply traditional corporate mindset? Could improv skills be useful in the food processing ideation process? I decided to do a little research on the subject and, to my surprise, discovered that someone else had already thought of the idea.

   Here are the essential steps to making improv work at work, according to Michelle James, CEO of the Center for Creative Emergence: 

1. Yes and: Fully accepting what is being presented, and then adding a NEW piece of information, allows the process to move forward and stay generative.

2. Make everyone else look good: The improve process frees you from having to defend or justify yourself or your position - you have a group of others who will do that for you, and you are committed to doing that for others. Without the burden of defensiveness, everyone is free to create.

3. Allow yourself to be changed by what is said and what happens: At each moment, new information is an invitation for you to react in a new and different way. Change inspires new ideas, which lead to more new ideas.

4. Co-create a shared "agenda": This principle involves the recognition that even the best-laid plans are abandoned if a better idea is presented. You and your collaborators are co-creating the agenda in real-time, in order to keep the process moving forward.

5. Be fully present and engaged: By its very nature, the improv process requires all participants to be fully present, engaged and in the moment, fueling a well spring of mutually-inspired creativity.

6. Think on your feet: Improvisational skills help enhance core leadership competencies and overall performance, including the ability to respond confidently in the moment while under pressure. 

7. Seek the good of the whole: Participants in the improv process learn to think in terms of “How can I best serve this situation?" They develop a sense of when to contribute to the discussion and when to listen, when to take focus and when to give it, how to best support their fellow performers and how to best keep the momentum going. This focus on serving the larger good ensures that more creative impulses and resources are available at any moment.

    The next time you decide to hold a company ideation session, try watching some improv comedy to loosen everybody up and create a free-flowing environment to encourage a flow of ideas.

   Feel free to check out the www.creativeemergence.com for more ideas.

by Scott Waggoner

   Wouldn’t it be great to talk directly to the person buying your product?  What if we could learn what our consumers want before we invest in new products, and use their input to refine products once they’re introduced, building customer loyalty?  Food processors have long defined major trends of marketing through media. Food processors created the most memorable childhood cereal commercials, and the many popular beverage jingles. Who can forget “Mikey likes it!” or “I’d like to teach the world to sing?”  The explosive popularity of online communities offers food processors an unprecedented – and surprisingly simple – opportunity to create a truly interactive relationship with their customers.

   The revolution of the internet has redefined our media and developed a new sense of community.  Consumers now flock to online communities such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube where they can communicate directly with product marketers and declare loyalty to a brand.  This opportunity to have direct conversations with consumers via ‘social’ media has added a customer service dimension to the traditional marketing role.

   Online communities highlight the transformation of the internet into a two-way communications tool.  The potential for these communities is immense – they allow individuals to express their voice in creating the brand, and give them an investment in the brand’s success.  In online communities, a brand has equal status with the people using them, becoming a ‘person’ in itself.  Businesses and products suddenly have a personality, and if they want to make ‘friends’ in these online communities they have to communicate this personality.

   Setting up an online community presence is surprisingly easy, and can be an invaluable tool to create and engage an online community of customers and partners.  One NWFPA member company, Tillamook County Creamery Association, has achieved remarkable success through its Tillamook Fan Club Initiative (www.tillamookfanclub.com).  Messaging is presented on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube using ‘cheesy’ puns to define Tillamook as a little silly.  On Facebook alone, the Tillamook Cheese fan page has attracted nearly 60,000 individuals.  While this number might be impressive, what is more impressive is Tillamook’s ability to lure “fans” back to the page and keep them in active discussion.  Short status updates by Tillamook, often in the form of questions, frequently spark over 100 responses.  The social media presence has helped facilitate brand loyalty, and Tillamook has been using this approach to establish new consumer bases as they expand their product to new markets by differentiating themselves from the established competition.  

   There are other examples of NWFPA members’ successes with online communities. ConAgra Foods - Lamb Weston is using social media at a national level to promote their charitable giving activities.  Kettle Foods invites fans to shout out their favorite flavor.  Kraft Foods engages their fans with recipe ideas.  YoCream updates fans on new flavors and responds directly to their feedback.  To achieve success with online communities in expanding its consumer base, the brand must first find its own identity for social media visitors to appreciate and become attracted to.

   A small investment in online social media marketing can provide an immense return for brands that succeed in attracting online communities.  They provide a platform to broadcast new products and success stories, and to refine products using a fan base acting as a free focus group.  When you engage consumers, consumers will engage you.  Consumers want to feel that they have a say in product development and that their opinion matters.  Online communities offer great opportunity to achieve these goals, making your customers stakeholders in your company’s success.

By Jim Azumano and Jeff Kuechle

“The difference between a vision and a hallucination,” says corporate change expert Terry Paulson, “is the number of people who see it.”

Encouraging innovation is a key component of our mission at the Northwest Food Processors Education & Research Institute. Quite simply, we focus on giving food processors the resources they need to improve their innovation capacity because, without ongoing innovation, our industry cannot survive. Enterprise-enhancing innovation can come from any employee in your organization. But it is in a corporate culture that embraces change management from the top down that innovation thrives best. That requires vision, not hallucination.

By Norman Bodek

Whenever I’m asked to speak at an executive conference, I ask the audience “What’s your employees’ favorite day of the week?” The answer, invariably, is “Friday.” My question, in response, is invariably, “Why not Monday? Why don’t your workers say ‘TGIM,’ rather than ‘TGIF?’”. The answer is, because most American companies don’t focus enough on their employees.

In my 30 years of studying and importing the best of Japanese business practices to this country, I have come across a number of revolutionary and empowering ideas. But I have never found a concept that has excited me more than a recent discovery: the Harada Process.

by David McGiverin

All companies face their share of human resource challenges. For rural facilities, it might be attracting well-qualified employees away from big-city employers to places like Moses Lake, Boardman or Idaho Falls. For large, prosperous, well-established companies, the challenge might be finding enough bright, well-trained young candidates to replace the skill sets that will be lost as the key managers and technicians of the baby boomer generation retire.

Many startup companies face all of these HR challenges, plus others unique to their status as new companies without a lengthy track-record of policies and proven best-practice procedures. The purpose of this article is to identify some of the unique HR challenges startup companies face, and to suggest some techniques that will help eliminate those challenges before they become major headaches.

By David McGiverin

During the recent economic downturn, a common but dangerous business myth has emerged: it’s an employer’s marketplace. With so many downsized employees desperate to work, any job is a good job – why not enhance your company’s bottom line by demanding more, and offering less?

That’s a short-sighted policy that, in the long run, has the potential to do significant damage to any company that embraces it. One of the most dramatic ways to illustrate the importance of an effective, employee-centered human resources policy is by looking in detail at the true costs of employee turnover. Some are obvious – it’s expensive to hire and train new workers. Other costs are less apparent, but have significant potential to negatively impact your bottom line. The following list illustrates the true cost of a high rate of turnover/employee attrition:

Steam systems account for about 30% of the total energy used in industrial applications for product output. These systems can be indispensable in delivering the energy needed for process heating, pressure control, mechanical drives, separation of components, and production of hot water for process reactions.

As energy costs continue to rise, industrial plants need effective ways to reduce the amount of energy consumed by their steam systems. To help meet this need, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) works with the nation’s most energy-intensive plants to uncover opportunities for reducing energy use and costs while maintaining—or increasing—productivity. ]]> Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:45:06 +0100 http://www.nwfpa.org/nwfpa.info//index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=300:determine-the-cost-of-compressed-air-for-your-plant&catid=145:catalyst-articles&directory=82 Determine the Cost of Compressed Air for Your Plant
Most industrial facilities need some form of compressed air, whether for running a simple air tool or for more complicated tasks such as the operation of pneumatic controls. A recent survey by the U.S. Department of Energy showed that for a typical industrial facility, approximately 10% of the electricity consumed is for generating compressed air. For some facilities, compressed air generation may account for 30% or more of the electricity consumed. Compressed air is an on-site generated utility. Very often, the cost of generation is not known; however, some companies use a value of 18-30 cents per 1,000 cubic feet of air. ]]> Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:09:48 +0100 http://www.nwfpa.org/nwfpa.info//index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=301:how-to-buy-an-energy-efficient-commercial-boiler&catid=145:catalyst-articles&directory=82 How to Buy an Energy-Efficient Commercial Boiler

Why Agencies Should Buy Efficient Products