1. CONTACT
Energy & Efficiency Case Study
Inspiring Software helps a grand components
manufacturer save 11% on energy with a
Monitoring and Control system
We didn’t expect there was
so much energy waste in our
process. This project is giving
us a big competitive
advantage
Maurizio Costa,
Technical Director
Customer Profile
In this case study our customer is a large manufac-
turer specializing in the production of metal compo-
nents. They are also the world leader in the manu-
facture of undercarriage parts, providing the widest
choice of track components and systems for track
type machines. The company's manufacturing
centres supply tracks and components for the
earthmoving equipment of most major OEMs includ-
ing Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi, John Deere, Lieb-
herr, Case CE, and Dresser. Inspiring Software
worked on the headquarters of the manufacturer, in
Ferrara (Italy), which is also home to the largest of
its 4 production facilities.
Customer needs
The plant in Ferrara covers almost 600,000 square
metres and employs around 2,300 staff working a
three-shift system. Annually the company spends
about €30 million on electricity and gas.
Over the last 10 years, the company invested more
than €400 million in innovation. Ferrara used part of
these investments to optimize energy use and
become more efficient. The customer approached
Inspiring Software with a wish to do a pilot project to
assess savings potential on the Ferrara site.
The challenge was, with only 4 meters available, to
reduce energy consumption of a production line by
5% with a ROI limit set to one year.
The Inspiring Software solution
First, in order to reduce initial investments and get
fast and measurable results, Inspiring Software
analysed the entire production line and defined the
most critical area. This became the target of the pilot
project.
This critical production area was a molding line com-
posed of (A) shear + load bars, (B) furnace, (C)
press and (D) deburring machine.
Annual electricity spend here was €400,000, which is
around 5% of the total plant electricity spend.
INDUSTRY
Via Enrico Fermi, 5A
Salò, BS 25087, Italy
Tel. +39 0365 520098
www.inspiringsoftware.com
intsupport@inspiringsoftware.com
Inspiring
software
®
Inspiring Software International

2. By monitoring our consumption it was
possible to see wastes
Andrea Benassi,
Finance Officer
Having 13 months of 15’ data from the 4 existing
meters, Inspiring Software gathered additional
production data and started modelling the energy
consumption of the line. This approach allowed to
understand and predict the consumption of every
piece of equipment. Inspiring Software was thus
able to identify all energy waste and inefficiency in
the historical data and set up an automated control
of energy consumption.
Once consumption and costs were predicted, our
customer used CUSUM control charts to control
consumption on an on-going basis.
As a result it was possible to:
understand the effects of managing interven
tions from an energy point of view;
find previous anomalies and define procedures
to avoid them, for an estimated return of 20,000
€/year;
use the Inspiring Software Target Control
module to control the production line’s consump
tion, avoiding additional wastes worth 10,000
€/year. An example of such wastes is line
malfunctioning detection;
improve maintenance by just monitoring energy
consumption. This lead to further savings from
direct costs worth 5,000 €/year;
optimize equipment set-up parameters, such as
furnace temperature and production cycle, bring- ing in another 10,000 €/year in savings;
make a consumption budget for the line equip-
ment;
know, verify and control the return on every
energy efficiency action.
The final energy saving was €45,000 for one year, or
11% of the line electricity costs.
This convinced the manufacturer to install additional
16 meters so as to cover in total 80% of their overall
consumption. This way they could roll out the results
achieved so far to the rest of their plant.
CONTACT
With better energy reporting it is now
easier to get the management informed and
to get efficiency action approved
Marco Rossi,
Chief Production Manager
RESULTS
• A system for real-time energy waste
interception;
• 30,000 €/year as savings from waste
reduction;
• 10,000 €/year as savings from better
energy efficiency;
• 5,000 €/year as savings from an
optimized maintenance plan;
• The beginning of a systematic energy
reduction policy.
Via Enrico Fermi, 5A
Salò, BS 25087, Italy
Tel. +39 0365 520098
www.inspiringsoftware.com
intsupport@inspiringsoftware.com
Inspiring
software
®
Inspiring Software International