industry solutions manager for energy at manufacturing software supplier Wonderware, in Houston, also looks at packaging industry energy efficiency issues through a wide lens. In his case, it’s the methodology of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). This measure of manufacturing effectiveness employs the formula OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality. Availability is uptime as a percentage of time scheduled for work, Performance is the speed at which work is done as a percentage of designed speed, and Quality is the percentage of good units out of the total number of units produced.

“Basically, a packaging line, whether it has efficient motors or not, is running most efficiently when it is making the correct product at the correct rate and it’s not being wasteful. Anything less than that and you are wasting energy, along with materials and labor.” Schiel says. “OEE allows you to detect when these things are occurring, which is the key so you can take some corrective action.”

Schiel’s colleague, Maryanne Steidinger, Wonderware’s product manager, MES & EMI, stresses that this requires real-time monitoring and reporting capability. “The food and beverage industry have the highest degree of need right now for these kinds of systems,” she adds. “Because energy is so expensive now, and their business environment so competitive, they really need to be able to home in on the resources they are using.”

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