Now more than ever, efficiency and cost reduction is the way forward for production sites. In many ways some of these issues have been tackled through consolidation of utility supplies, reduction in supplier base and supplier partnerships.
However there is one often overlooked production investment that can reap significant rewards from ongoing cost savings.
Many food companies utilize vacuum in their production, processing and packaging applications and many still use pumps located directly on machinery and in production halls. This leads to a broad range of potential improvements and ongoing cost savings through careful and professional installations of Central Vacuum Systems.
The key benefits are as follows:
- Lower electricity costs and ongoing savings through lower installed power base – a Central Vacuum System typically requires less overall pumping capacity and therefore less installed power than individual machines supplied from individual pumps resulting in reduced power for the required vacuum performance.
- Lower Maintenance costs – with a well designed Central Vacuum System the pumps work when required and can be turned off when not, plus the lead pump can be cycled; maximising the running performance and spreading the work load across the pumping set resulting in even wear and more predictable maintenance schedules.
- Greater efficiency - pumps run when required and stop when there is reduced or no demand reducing costs per cycle and wasted non productive energy demands.
- Greater reliability and less downtime – a well calculated Central Vacuum System will reduce the workloads across the pump set and will be more reliable, great savings in lost production and engineering downtime and expensive call out charges can be made, plus fewer upset customers waiting for deliveries.
- Reduced heat load in the production or packaging hall – Central Vacuum Systems can be located in remote plant rooms. Typical refrigeration and air conditioning requires 1.5kw of energy to remove the heat created by 1kw motor.
- Reduced noise levels – again with remote location a significant amount of noise and therefore health and safety implication.
See the articles above left for examples of previous Busch Installations and there applications.
