Compressed Air Best Practices-August 2008

| 08/08 Focus Industry COMPRESSED AIR AUDITS | BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS AT CUMMINS-WAGNER The Cummins-Wagner Staff in Annapolis Junction, Maryland The Cummins-Wagner Staff in Ashland, Virginia The Cummins-Wagner Staff in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania Across the three facilities we deploy 23 fully equipped service trucks manned by factory-trained technicians, all on 24-hour call. We have invested heavily in our information technology tools as well. All locations are interconnected 24/7 into the same business management system. Remote or mobile users are equipped with laptops and can access the system via VPN or Citrix. Has compressed air auditing helped your relationships with customers? Auditing has enabled us to strengthen our relationships with our customers. Auditing has been a natural fit for us since we have always been more of a problem solver than a vendor to our customers. Since our sales-people/owners sell all of our products from pumps and blowers to heat transfer equipment and air compressors — we have a lot of areas we can help our customers with. We had a chemical processing customer, for example, with an ongoing problem with some mechanical seals lasting only months. We were able to design a sealing solution, which now lasts three years. This has saved them a significant amount of money. When designing the solution to the mechanical seal problem, we were able to truly understand their downstream processes. When they wanted to review their compressed air systems, we were the natural choice due to our knowledge of their processes — even though we had not supplied the air compressors in the compressor room. The most important first step is to help the customer realize that they need to measure and benchmark compressed air in order to improve. Without that, they just won’t know. We are selling flow meters now to customers so they can measure and see what is happening every day. These meters come with software allowing the customer to tie into the clients Ethernet systems. Measuring air flow tells them what their demand is. This also allows them to see how much flow there is (leaks) when there is no production on weekends for example. Usually the next step (after installing a flow meter) for the customer is to start a leak repair program. We schedule our audits to include a no-production day so we can accurately quantify leaks. How do you measure a compressed air system? Robert Schwarz and I conduct most of the compressed air system audits for the company. We normally begin with a supply-side audit. We feel that it is a good place to start the learning process. How do you go about doing audits? We see a compressed air audit as a learning process. The customer and I embark upon a process together to learn how to save energy. I have found out that decision makers like to be involved in the process. Mark Shaffer, of Cummins-Wagner, monitoring compressed air flow during an audit. 42 www .aii rbe stpracti bt tices.com http://www.airbestpractices.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Compressed Air Best Practices-August 2008

Compressed Air Best Practices- August 2008 Contents From the Editor Utility-Air News The August Audit of the Month: A Vacuum System Audit Energized for Savings at Seattle City Light and Tacoma Power Know Your System CASE: Compressed Air Supply Efficiency Ecos Air: Managing Incentive Programs Kaeser Compressors: Loyalty, Energy and Growth Building Relationships at Cummins-Wagner McIntire is Moving Forward The 2008 A.I.C.D. Conference & Exhibition Tuthill Vacuum and Blower Systems Resources for Energy Engineers: Training Calendar & Product Picks Wall Street Watch Advertiser Index Job Market

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