In speaking with commercial and industrial companies as well as government sector enterprises, I’ve come to the realization that most have not adopted a sustainable energy management operating environment. Albeit, not all inclusive, the reasons for this current situation can be summarized in:

1. No management commitment: Or further to this point, management usually places emphasis on other cost drivers.
2. Organizational alignment: Accountability and responsibility for energy consumption and cost are not one in the same. The organizational alignment from an energy management perspective is highly fragmented.
3. The energy strategy is focused on audits. However only a portion, normally less than 30%, of the audit countermeasures and programs identified are funded (reference Item 1). 
4. The enterprise has adopted a project-driven strategy which is neither sustainable, benefits degrade over time, and is simply much too costly.  And last …
5. The enterprise simply loses its energy inertia and ultimately there is disbelief that effective sustainable change is achievable.

These problems are not unique to energy management. If you remember back to the early 1980s (I’m certain that I’m dating myself here) with the “quality” paradigm adoption, the same conditions existed then. Having the benefit of time to look back, we can now see, in general, that those companies that ultimately were successful in adopting a sustainable “quality” operating model are those that have been arguably more successful than those that did not. I think the same expectation can be anticipated for sustainable energy management adoption.

So my question is this, if you were to rate your enterprise from 0 to 5 with respect to addressing the five conditions above, what would the average score on your Energy Report Card be?  A= 4 to 5; B = 3 to 4; C = 2 to 3; D = 1 – 2; and F = 0 to 1?

I’d be interested in your feedback. Please leave a comment to this post with your thoughts.

Posted by Rod Ellsworth, Vice President of Global Asset Sustainability, Infor

Operational risk management is receiving increased attention and focus in recent times as organizations seek to improve their overall performance and mitigate potential loss. To manage risk effectively, you have to choose the right data and metrics and have a clear sense of how all the moving parts work together.

Risk managers routinely make several mistakes:

1. Focusing on narrow measurements, when more in-context data should be included.
2. Relying on historical data, or when aging equipment and demand has changed.
3. Overlooking known risks. Maintenance teams simply overlook many types of risk and sometimes even create them.
4. Overlooking concealed risk. The people responsible for incurring risk often don’t report it.
5. Failing to communicate. Risk management will fail if the systems fail to communicate clearly.
6. Not managing in real time. Risk can change quickly, thus systems need to be responsive.

Example: The Hammersmith Flyover in London has been closed since December 23 after serious defects were found in its structure. Built in 1960, about 90,000 vehicles per day travel along the 900m (0.56-mile) main access route, into the capital. Seeping water has caused the cables, which help to support the road bridge, to rust and weaken. The impact to business, including preparation for the Olympics, is immeasurable. The point is, total closure at this critical time could have been avoided if the correct systems were in place.

So my question is this, if you were to rate your enterprise from 0 to 5 with respect to addressing the six conditions above, what would the average score on your risk report be?

I’d be interested in your feedback. Please leave a comment to this post with your thoughts.

Posted by Cyrus Hatfield, Vice President, North America, EAM and Sustainability, Infor

From high-end sunglasses to computer tablets, the world’s leading brands are investing big dollars in product life-cycle assessments (LCA). Why are today’s top brands racing to complete their LCAs before their competitors?

Today’s tier one suppliers and many well-known, progressive brands understand the impact of their products on the environment for winning customers—differentiating their brand in the marketplace. It no longer matters if your company’s leadership cares about sustainability because now your customers do.

In general, life-cycle assessment is a way to measure the impact related to cradle-to-grave stages of any widget or product—from raw materials to product disposal. To protect lines of revenue, companies measure and disclose this impact to customers, and more recently to consumers through labeling, similar to today’s FDA labels on food.

As savvy consumers know, LCAs avoid the common, narrow outlook on a company’s sustainability practices. Instead, the LCA focuses on the end-to-end energy usage, materials input, and environmental releases of a single product (i.e. the impact of one iPad sold in the marketplace). This doesn’t mean manufacturing a product is bad, it means that measuring the impacts in order to provide a basis for efficiency improvements and goal-setting is gaining momentum as a competitive differentiator. Your competitors are not just thinking about this, they’re labeling their products to demonstrate their commitment to producing goods most efficiently—and consumers are responding.

While grocery shopping, assuming cost and quality are equal, would you choose the gallon of milk produced with less energy and emissions? Would you consider an environmental label when deciding between the two brands?

Are you using information gathered from LCAs to differentiate your products from your competitors? Please share your thoughts and comments by leaving a comment to this post.

Posted by Lia Minelli, Global Director of Enterprise Sustainability Solutions, Infor

When asked, many companies will say that they are using an energy management system to monitor and measure their energy performance. In most cases, this “energy management system” is actually a utility bill processing and reporting system. And although it a may provide accurate monitoring from an energy-cost perspective, it doesn’t necessarily provide the energy intelligence required to address non-conformities in a timely manner to mitigate energy waste.

The business value derived by energy performance management can be based on monitoring and measuring energy and interdependent attribute data at meaningful levels within an enterprise, not simply at the utility bill level. The data, when captured and associated to the appropriate asset-level source within the enterprise, can then allow the application of non-conformity reasoning and communication to ensure energy anomalies are identified, communicated, and mitigated in a timely manner. To accomplish this, you must monitor and measure a number of factors on a continual basis to attain and preserve an energy efficient operational environment, including:

• Energy use
• Energy intensity
• Energy consumption
• Energy quality
• Energy efficiency

So my question is, which of the identified energy measurements does your company use today to monitor and manage your energy performance?

I’d be interested in your feedback. Please leave a comment to this post with your thoughts.

Posted by Rod Ellsworth, Vice President of Global Asset Sustainability, Infor

In case you missed the announcement, the Infor EAM Customer Forum 2011 will be held in Greenville, South Carolina, November 7–10, 2011. That’s right, Greenville, SC—the world center for all things Infor EAM (formerly Datastream). Join us at the largest gathering of EAM users and product experts, and participate in over 80 hours of sessions dedicated to EAM. Take advantage of the hands-on lab, which will be open during the entire conference.

If you’re an Infor EAM customer and want to learn best practices on maintenance, reliability, and energy efficiency—or you simply want to get more out of your Infor EAM investment—you can’t miss this event. Take a minute to visit the conference website and register to take advantage of the Early Bird discounted rate. The entire Infor EAM team looks forward to connecting and collaborating with you in Greenville.

I’m a Weather Channel junkie…I’m fascinated by weather in general and how it affects our lives, every day, all around the globe. What’s even more fascinating to me is how the meteorologists are able to accurately (well, almost always) predict weather conditions for nearly every corner of our planet, days—sometimes weeks—in advance.

Thousands of years ago, people simply watched the sky to determine weather patterns. As the centuries progressed, so did meteorological technology. Now armed with satellites, computer modeling, and analytic skills, meteorologists have the tools they need to report accurate forecasts to help us plan our days and not get caught in a rainstorm without an umbrella.

Weather forecasting got me thinking about predicting asset conditions—even imminent failure—and the tools that we have at our fingertips to help avoid problems. Having the right tools to monitor and measure the condition of your assets can help detect when changes occur in an asset’s condition and enable you to predict and address problems before they occur (like take an umbrella to work when there’s rain in the forecast). Just like meteorological technology, the tools and technologies used to monitor assets have increasingly become more sophisticated and give us a real-time view of how they operate on a daily basis.

Sheila Kennedy of Plant Services wrote this great article about advancements in predictive tools and products being delivered by a number of companies, including Infor. The tools feature improvements in connectivity, usability, portability, and affordability.

What technology and/or tools do you use to monitor your assets and circumvent problems? What advances have you seen in the evolution of monitoring processes and analysis? I welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Posted by Scott O. Hall, Account Manager, Professional Services, Infor EAM

Companies are realizing that it’s no longer enough just to monitor assets. The time has come to proactively detect problems and drive corrective actions, as well as factor energy into maintenance plans, in order to stay competitive and grow. But how does an enterprise asset management (EAM) solution actually work on the shop floor to help reduce energy consumption and costs and keep your plant operating at its maximum efficiency?  

Take this interactive tour of Tricon Manufacturing, a virtual manufacturing plant, to see how EAM can help you:

• Manage energy consumption.
• Operate more efficiently.
• Predict your assets’ health.

Once you’re in the plant, you’ll see six hotspots representing Infor EAM and Infor ERP solutions’ strengths. Click on +signs to open a pop-up box and access key EAM assets, including customer videos, demos, papers, case studies, and more.

How do you envision asset management working in your plant? Share your thoughts and ideas by leaving a comment to this post.

The best way to get fit and stay fit is to maintain an exercise regimen and eat less junk. The same is true for your plant and equipment. By implementing a planned maintenance program and identifying maintenance waste items, you can create an environment where lean maintenance and lean manufacturing coexist. In the long run, you could improve reliability, realize significant gains in process efficiencies, and reduce the costs of maintenance activities.

Read how one food and beverage manufacturer has done just that.

Have you implemented lean strategies to leverage the full value of your assets? What maintenance regimens do you have in place to address equipment and plant repairs? Are you implementing lean on the factory floor? We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. Please leave a comment to this post.

Driven by the desire to improve its energy efficiency and condition monitoring, a wastewater reclamation authority embarked on a project to integrate its supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and enterprise asset management (EAM) applications to enable that objective.

Read the full Plant Services article now in this installment of What Works to see how this facility improves energy efficiency and condition monitoring.

Retailers are just like you and me when it comes to monitoring and reducing energy consumption. We’re always looking for ways to cut energy costs and improve energy efficiency in our homes. However, generally unlike our homes, lighting in commercial buildings is the largest energy drain and can account for over 35% of a business’ energy use. That means any reduction in their energy costs can amount to a big boost to the bottom line.

To help stop eroding profit margins, many retailers are taking a new approach to improve asset operating performance: global asset sustainability. By monitoring and managing assets’ energy consumption, retailers can get a better handle on what assets consume the most energy and begin to control and reduce energy waste to improve operating, financial, and environmental performance.

In this article from Professional Retail Store magazine, I explain how retailers can implement energy intelligence into your asset management strategy and reduce your carbon footprint, become more energy efficient, and ultimately impact profits.

What are you doing to reduce energy consumption? What programs do you have in place to manage your assets’ energy usage? 

As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Posted by Rod Ellsworth, Vice President of Global Asset Sustainability, Infor