Energy Cost Deployment (ECD): a novel Lean approach to tackle energy losses

Concerns regarding the environment have forced manufacturing organisations not only to aim for operational excellence but also to rethink how their operations and processes can become more environmentally sustainable. Companies need to decrease their unnecessary energy consumption while maintaining their productivity. Lean manufacturing is considered as one of the most influential energy management initiatives, since it increases the effective use of resources by identifying and eliminating losses. In this paper, a novel lean method called Energy Cost Deployment (ECD) is presented, whose objective are to classify, analyse, and eliminate energy losses within the factory. Modifying the well-known Manufacturing cost deployment, the novel ECD uses five matrices, which are built in sequence from the first one (i.e., A-matrix) to the last (i.e., E-matrix), in order to classify and analyse the causal factor of losses related to energy, with the focus on reducing and eliminating the greatest causal losses, and thus providing opportunities for greater efficiency. Each causal loss is quantified in monetary terms. Improvement techniques that deal with each causal loss are identified and then evaluated by means of a quantitative measure in order to find the preferable approaches. Finally, a practical decision procedure is used to select which improvement projects should be started, and hence which causal losses to tackle should be tackled, according to technical and economic factors. The effectiveness and practicality of the ECD method in tackling energy losses are illustrated using an industrial case study concerning a tissue-paper mill. Thanks to its structured stepby-step procedure, the ECD method improves the energy efficiency within a factory.