System Assessments

Thought Leaders on System Optimization Past & Future

Edited by Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine

We asked a hand-selected list of original equipment manufacturers, independent compressed air system sales and service companies, manufacturing plants and independent system auditors to share their thoughts, highlighting the changes they’ve seen over the past 20 years, then predicting what the next 20 years will bring.

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Snack Food Manufacturer Saves 50%

Ron Marshall, CET, CIM, Manitoba Hydro

The snack food facility is running with two normally separated compressed air production systems: the main plant system and the nitrogen system.

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Offset Printer Saves 1.8 Million kWh and $121,000 Per Year

By Hank Van Ormer, Air Power USA

This commercial printing facility is located in the Northeastern part of the U.S. Like most facilities, the plant has seen many changes over the years.

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Printing Facility Vacuum System Upgrades

By Compressed Air Best Practices

Most printing facilities use vacuum for one process or another. I recently spoke with Jesse Krivolavek, (a vacuum system efficiency specialist with IVS, Inc.) about his recent adventures in the world of printing.

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Sustainability at RR Donnelley

Compressed Air Best Practices interviewed Michael D. Manzella. Mr. Manzella is a Senior Vice President, Environmental, Health, Safety and Quality (EH&S), and also the Chief Sustainability Officer for RR Donnelley (RRD).

Sustainability at RRD starts with a philosophy. It is then executed through a global policy and objectives. RRD’s philosophy does not see sustainability as making a choice between being cost-effective and improving environmental impacts. On the contrary, sustainability represents integrating these two factors. This philosophy guides our sustainability objectives and strategies.

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Green Printer Reduces Energy Costs by 50%

By Patricia Boyd, Ecos Air

The primary objective of this case study is to illustrate the process in which industrial facilities can qualify for energy incentives on projects that reduce the energy usage of their compressed air system.

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Printing Facility Reduces Air Demand

Ron Marshall, CET, CIM, Manitoba Hydro

This article will focus on a compressed air system assessment done at a printing facility in Canada. The energy costs at the time, in Manitoba, were \$0.025 per kWh and the installation was of just 65 horsepower of air compressors.

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Plastic Injection Molder Saves Energy

By Dean Smith, iZ Systems

The facility is a plastics injection blowmolder and is a division of a large corporation. The following information was produced from a compressed air system assessment done over seven days.

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Blow-Off Air in Plastic Injection Molding

By Hank Van Ormer, Air Power USA

Over the last several decades, Air Power USA has reviewed many various types of plastic injection molding operations throughout the U.S.

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Energy-Saving Compressed Air Resin Dryers

By Rod Smith, Compressed Air Best Practices

Resin drying is a critical step in the manufacturing process of injection molding, extrusion molding and stretch blow molding. Compressed air resin dryers are one of the most commonly used dryers in the plastics molding industry. Recent advancements in compressed air membrane-type resin dryers, have reduced the associated energy costs significantly.

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Chrysler Finds Vacuum Savings of $400,000 per Plant

By Josef Karbassi, PIAB

A recent comparative vacuum technology study performed by Dr. Kingman Yee, as part of a Chrysler Summer Intern Professors Program, found that air consumption could be reduced by 98% when equipping a robot’s end-of-arm tooling with COAX® technology and a Vacustat™ check valve.

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