QMI helps fabric manufacturer curb electricity costs

Woven fabric manufacturer Beaulieu Pacific Pty Ltd spent two years trying to find ways to reduce carbon emissions and electricity consumption, but with little success.

General Manager Steve Bamford said the Acacia Ridge, Queensland-based manufacturer wanted to implement more sustainable processes. “We knew electricity costs needed to be reduced, but couldn’t identify what was causing the high costs. We didn’t know where to start.”

Fortunately, Beaulieu Pacific was introduced to QMI Solutions, which conducted a very thorough study of its electricity usage and costs, culminating in a comprehensive 40-page report on how it could trim energy costs.

After working with QMI Solutions for three months, Beaulieu Pacific has changed its practices significantly to reduce peak and total electricity usage, with no capital expenditure or negative impacts on product quality and production quantity.

Beaulieu Pacific operates a Jacquard weaving mill – named after its French inventor Joseph Marie Jacquard who developed the automatic loom to produce complex patterns within fabric. Beaulieu manufactures fabrics for residential and commercial applications, including upholstery, window furnishings, wall panellings, office privacy screens, bedspreads and drapery.

Beaulieu Pacific has been selling to Australian and New Zealand wholesalers since 1989 and has a working relationship with Belgian fabric manufacturer Beaulieu Fabrics NV, giving its customers direct access to the latest European designs.

Beaulieu’s factory employs 45 people, including specialist Jacquard weavers, technicians and in-house textile designers.
 

The manufacturer initially heard of QMI Solutions after completing a business review through a Federal Government-funded agency, Enterprise Connect. “At the end of the review, they gave us a list of recommendations and QMI was suggested as a manufacturing specialist we could contact,” Bamford said.

From May to July 2011, QMI Solutions conducted a Sustainable Value Stream Mapping (VSM) project. It included mapping the production flow, analysing electricity bills from May 2010 to April 2011, monitoring electricity usage and creating action plans to reduce peak usage charges and total electricity consumption.

QMI Solutions developed a three-phase approach. “At the moment, we’ve only done phase one, so there is still a lot of work to do. We are a work in progress,” Bamford said.

Phase one was evaluating manufacturing processes for sustainability. “We did a VSM on how long each phase in the manufacturing process took and identified bottlenecks. It highlighted any excessive electricity usage.”

Bamford said QMI would return to help the company implement phases two and three, which would focus on increasing productivity and further reducing electricity usage.

The VSM found only 40% to 45% of electricity consumed was embedded in product; the remainder was not used in value-adding processes. Value-add processing contributed to only 15% of the lead time, with the remainder spent on waiting between processes or quality checks.

“QMI put monitors on all the machines, so we could get reliable data on what usage actually was,” Bamford said.

Beaulieu Pacific has now implemented a policy of operating large energy-consuming machines on alternate days. It switched lighting off in unused areas of the factory.

Already, Beaulieu Pacific has reduced electricity peak usage costs up to $1,000 a month. “QMI helped us identify where our peaks were so we could reduce output during peak times,” Bamford said. That was particularly important because of the pricing structure from Queensland suppliers.

The peak demand charge is based on the highest rate of consumption in a given month. Electricity suppliers measure total consumption in every half-hour period, and find the half-hour period where usage is highest. Within the half-hour period, short periods of very high usage may occur but average consumption over the half hour is measured.

Beaulieu also renegotiated its contract to reduce its demand cost by 22%, or $34,000 a year.
The peak charge per kilowatt hour (kWh) dropped from 10.517 cents to 5.335 cents and off-peak charges went down about 40%, from 4.024 cents to 2.471 cents per kWh.

Average peak demand dropped from 335 kWh to 280 kWh, a reduction of 55 kilowatts. At $10.33 per kilowatt, that meant a monthly saving of $568.15.

If Beaulieu Pacific continued to manage electricity consumption and introduced further measures, QMI Solutions predicted its total electricity consumption would reduce 5% to 10% a year, an equivalent saving of 50 tonnes to 100 tonnes of CO2.

In phases two and three of its program, Beaulieu Pacific will implement cost savings in the weaving shed; run weaving looms at higher speeds; and reduce standby power consumption by switching looms off entirely when they are not in use.

Bamford said management was aware the process to bring about change would take time. “We are discussing all recommendations proposed by QMI in our meetings, to see what we are capable of doing.”

In its report, QMI listed 13 recommendations for Beaulieu Pacific to keep progress on track. They included implementing Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) measures on the looms.

OEE aims to balance competing priorities in the manufacturing process, delivering maximum possible output from all machines. It observes and records any negative effects of other recommendations, for example, optimum use of older looms, running looms faster and switching looms off completely.

For Beaulieu Pacific, speed and reliability are competing priorities. Manufacturing efficiency is improved as a loom’s speed increases. However, the loom’s condition may limit maximum speed, due to increased stoppages or deteriorating quality. Currently, some machines are operated at slower speeds so reliability is maximised.

QMI recommended staff switch off loom motors whenever possible, with anticipated savings of 40,734 kWh a year, which is equivalent to saving more than 42 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. If controls were also switched off, that would save an additional 53,392 kWh or 55.5 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year.

Bamford said management had previously struggled to identify areas of electricity wastage, but now had a good understanding of the impacts of electricity charges and the importance of controlling the looms’ electricity consumption.

He said conducting a Sustainable VSM project would help other manufacturers because consumer perceptions and pending legislation were forcing businesses to review the sustainability of resources and processes.

“The QMI Solutions approach to improving manufacturing processes helped Beaulieu Pacific gain amazing results in a short time,” Bamford said.

“Unlike some other programs, where consultants give advice after reading it in a book, QMI Solutions took the time to research fabric manufacturing so it could gain practical knowledge about our operations. Without that dedication, I don’t think we would have achieved such great results,” he said.

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