For decades, the textile industry has applied the principles of process monitoring to their production machines. As such textile machines are networked to MES systems to monitor in real time production, quality, speed, stop levels, downtimes and production efficiency. Today it is no longer sufficient to optimize output, quality and production planning, but energy consumption is becoming a very important factor in the operating cost of a textile plant. A sudden increase in the energy usage of a production run can push an order easily in the red figures. With ever rising energy prices and increasing environmental legislation, efficient energy management has become a very critical success factor to run a profitable business in todays global economy.

In order to help textile companies with these new challenges, BMS-BarcoVision has extended its existing MES applications with an EnergyMaster module. Following the principle of Monitoring and Targeting (M&T), it maps the different energy consumptions (electricity, gas, pressured air, water, steam, effluent, CO2 emission) for further analysis and optimization. The integration of these energy parameters with the other MES applications, such as monitoring of spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing machines provides a perfect insight in the relation between energy usage and production.

 

Which objectives are targeted with EnergyMaster?

By monitoring the energy usage the company gets answers on important issues such as:

- Which machines or departments are the largest energy users?

- What is causing our peak usage?

- What about the cos Phi power factor of our company?

- What about the energy usage fluctuation of a machine or department over time?

- What is the energy usage by Style and Product?

- What is the remnant energy usage when production is shut down?

- What abnormal usages occur and when?

Automatic alerts to managers on exceptional energy usage via email or text messages, allows for quick reaction and to realize immediate savings. The use of energy monitoring creates an energy awareness culture within the company for all employees. The EnergyMaster is the perfect tool for a company to achieve its Energy Efficiency Plan goals.

Energy usage measuring

In order to achieve energy management, usage meters need to be installed. In some departments meters can be placed in the power switch panel to measure the consumption of a group of machines, but high energy consumption machines such as dyeing, finishing, OE spinning machines should be equipped with individual meters.