Real-time Energy Management Improves Profitability

June 24, 2010
Software tools from Rockwell Automation, including RSEnergyMetrix® and FactoryTalk® VantagePoint, help correlate energy costs to production costs for maximized productivity and capacity.

To succeed, manufacturers must be able to take advantage of every resource available to them to increase profitability. Sophisticated manufacturers are building infrastructures that will support real-time decision-making for every corner of the plant. More and more, they are turning to an area of cost-savings that is, for many, not fully tapped: energy management.

RSEnergyMetrix from Rockwell Software is a scalable, time-stamped energy historian that allows users to optimize energy consumption by capturing, analyzing and sharing energy data through a Web interface. Users can quickly and easily configure meters and devices from a Web browser, allocating meters to groups for more accurate accounting or to align with the organization’s structure. RSEnergyMetrix provides real-time data capture from Rockwell Automation power monitors manually, or from third party PLCs, and provides reporting functionality to help analyze potential cost savings, alternative rate schedules, or in budgeting and forecasting. The package includes alarming functionality to identify breached thresholds and email alerts for quick threat resolution.

RSEnergyMetrix enables users to:
• Correlate energy costs to production costs
• Optimize energy use by process, by shift, by line or by product
• Negotiate better energy rates
• Maximize productivity and production capacity

Once that key production information is captured, FactoryTalk VantagePoint is uniquely positioned to maximize its usability across the enterprise.

FactoryTalk VantagePoint places information from disparate systems into context and provides visibility into production through a web-based reporting tool that gives users a fully-fleshed picture of what factors are contributing to weak spots in performance and how each relates to the other. Perhaps more difficult to manage, that information can come from systems developed by different vendors and systems that range widely in age. It also provides easy-to-use reporting on Key Performance Indicators, enabling users to drill into the right level of detail for their role—whether operator or line supervisor, plant manager or executive.

This unparalleled, actionable insight enables manufacturers to achieve lower overhead and manufacturing costs, better manage capacity, extend the useful life of existing capital equipment, improve manufacturing consistency, energy use and first-pass quality—all critical to bottom-line results.

For more information, visit Rockwell Automation Manufacturing Intelligence Solutions.

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