Fordecades, the textile industry has applied the principles of process monitoring to their production machines. As such textile machines are networked to MESsystems to monitor in real time production, quality, speed, stop levels,downtimes and production efficiency. Today it is no longer sufficient tooptimize output, quality and production planning, but energy consumption isbecoming a very important factor in the operating cost of a textile plant. Asudden increase in the energy usage of a production run can push an ordereasily in the red figures. With ever rising energy prices and increasingenvironmental legislation, efficient energy management has become a verycritical success factor to run a profitable business in todays global economy.


In order tohelp textile companies with these new challenges, BMS-BarcoVision has extendedits 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) forfurther analysis and optimization. The integration of these energy parameterswith the other MES applications, such as monitoring of spinning, weaving, dyeingand finishing machines provides a perfect insight in the relation betweenenergy usage and production.

 

Which objectives are targeted with EnergyMaster?


Bymonitoring the energy usage the company gets answers on important issues suchas:

- Whichmachines or departments are the largest energy users?

- What iscausing our peak usage?

- Whatabout the cos Phi power factor of our company?

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

- What isthe energy usage by Style and Product?

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

- Whatabnormal usages occur and when?


Automaticalerts to managers on exceptional energy usage via email or text messages,allows for quick reaction and to realize immediate savings. The use of energymonitoring creates an energy awareness culture within the company for allemployees. The EnergyMaster is the perfect tool for a company to achieve itsEnergy Efficiency Plan goals.


Energyusage measuring


In order toachieve energy management, usage meters need to be installed. In somedepartments meters can be placed in the power switch panel to measure theconsumption of a group of machines, but high energy consumption machines suchas dyeing, finishing, OE spinning machines should be equipped with individualmeters.


 

These simple meters allow measuring the active energy usage. Such a meter typically consists of 3 coils, one per phase, connected to the electrical wires. The meter then converts the signals of the 3 coils in to consumption pulses. These pulses are counted by the BarcoVision data units and passed on in real time to the MES system, exactly like stop times and production and quality data are transmitted.

 

In many cases, these data units are already present at the machine to detect and transmit production and quality data to the BarcoVision MES systems. As such energy data can be transmitted via the existing network to the PC server of the BarcoVision system. With recently installed systems, the data are transmitted wirelessly utilizing the Bluetooth protocol.



Fig. 1 shows how a data unit can be extended with an energy meter. The production and quality data of the machine are passed on together with the energy usage data to the BarcoVision MES system. In the dye house, SedoMat controllers are used for the process controls; these can also be extended with usage meters for power, compressed air and water usage.


Reporting


The reporting for energy usage is well documented by the industry in many countries. For example in the UK, companies receive government subsidies if the installed energy monitoring software package includes a well defined set of reports. The BarcoVision MES systems have been extended with exactly this set of reports. These reports include:


Counter reports: These are graphs which map the meter data. The measured usage per meter is charted in graphical way. With such a report the main meter of the plant can be monitored (Fig. 2).


Consumer reports: Several usage meters can be grouped together in to one department. As such spinning, weaving, dyeing, administration can be defined as a specific consumer. The consumer reports are graphic reports which show the usage of a certain department. The user can also select the time period for each group of machines. Line or bar charts can be selected. These reports can be used to trace abnormal peak usage, to eliminate abnormal usage and for example to evaluate if reduced night or weekend shifts makes sense, considering the higher energy usage per unit of production.


 

History reports: This set of reports shows the energy usage for a specific machine, for a machine type, for a style or product, for a department or for the whole plant over a longer time period. These reports allow evaluating the energy component in the overall product cost of each product. Does the energy usage remain constant when a certain style is produced or are there large fluctuations, which require further analysis?


Trend reports: These reports allow management to analyze the energy usage over different time periods, such as per week, per month and per year. Energy usage trends can be selected for a specific type weaving machine, a specific style or product, a specific department or the whole plant. A special type report is the CUSUM trend. This report allows comparing the real usage versus budget. The gradient line in the trend graph allows immediate detection of a rising or decreasing trend in energy consumption. Such reports really help promote the energy awareness culture.


Combination reports: In these reports energy usage is related to effective production. For example in the dye house energy usage is reported by batch; in weaving energy usage is reported per million picks and in spinning per 10,000 lbs produced. By analysis these data by type of machine and by type of product, one can determine easily which product on which type machine is produced in a most energy efficient way. The use of regression analysis reports allows to determine relationships between production level and energy usage or to map inside or outside temperature and energy usage.



Fig. 2 shows the counter report of the main meter of the plant. The electricity usage (active power) and the according power factor cos phi are reported for every 15 minute interval. During the weekend fewer machines are in production and as a result the active power decreases and the power factor improves. The graph shows that the cos phi power factor always remains above 0.9, which indicates an acceptable situation. This graph also allows to evaluate the functioning of the condenser battery for improvement of the cos phi power factor.


 

Conclusion


With the addition of the EnergyMaster module, the BarcoVision MES (Manufacturing Execution system) systems are extended with the monitoring of an important cost factor. By taking advantage of the already present data collection network, data base and server configuration, the investment cost can be kept to the minimum while the energy bill savings can be substantial every month by using the EnergyMaster module.


By defining an Energy Efficiency plan with clear objectives, significant energy savings can be realized. EnergyMaster is the right software package to provide analysis and decision support for quick energy saving actions.


About the Author:


Bernard Cruycke is a President of BMS bvba BarcoVision.

Barco group supplies Manufacturing Execution Systems for textile, plastics and pharmaceutical industry. Under the brand name 'BarcoVision' they offer a range of sensors and systems for productivity and quality improvement.