Controlling the controllables delivers enormous savings

The largest crisp manufacturer in the world needs a lot of compressed air to churn out the volume of crisps required to satisfy their massive consumer following. At their Leicester production factory they had 7 compressors of various ages, all above 110kW and they were using all of the compressors with no central control. Even their variable speed machine had not control. Running costs were unacceptable and unsustainable even before the hike in energy prices. Machines running offload amounted to £25k non-productive waste.

Maziak carried out extensive datalogging and identified issues with control gaps and incorrect utilization of machines and proposed fitting a central SAM4-8 controller. This allowed for compressors at different ends of the factory to be controlled centrally and for each machine to talk to each other. Due to the distance between compressor houses, this was achieved through fibre optic cable—a Maziak first! 350metres of fibre optic cable was installed and they are running a variation of 3 compressors as opposed to the original 7.

They were able to utilise the super deduction capital allowance scheme, amounting to £21k. The headline though is that new annual running costs are predicted to be a massive 45% less than previously. A critical reduction considering the subsequent spike in energy prices. They also have a Platinum SLA with Maziak, giving them ultimate operational peace of mind.

The next step to deliver further energy savings would be to replace some of the oldest machines (20 years old) so that the existing 7 year old machines become back up to new, even more energy efficient models.