Methodology for energy efficiency on process level

Today, energy efficiency issues are becoming more and more important within organizations. Many problems arise when these organizations take the challenge of producing with fewer resources, like materials and energy. There is no general procedure to integrate these aspects in everyday organizational practices. The international standard ISO 50001 defines general requirements for the operational and organizational structure for companies but the standard gives no information about how to realize energy-efficient processes on productive or non-productive level. The energy consumption of processes is rarely known because of an insufficient existing infrastructure and missing measuring devices. Furthermore, often there is a lack of manpower and knowledge about new and innovative technologies. If any expertise exists, it is linked to individual positions and not systematically integrated in projects or structures for the improvement of production processes. The integration of know-how in energy performance such as energy efficiency, energy use and consumption in organizations needs a knowledge management system and a procedure for the consideration of energy aspects. The new approach is to link a systematic methodology for the identification of energy saving potential to the proposal of measures for their improvement. This approach requires a detailed analysis of the technical and structural facts in production processes. The outcomes of this analysis combined with a database of common measures are generating company-specific measures. The measures are going to be evaluated by defined criteria. The results will be provided for the different roles in an organization. Examples are user-specific checklists or processes for individual tasks. With this approach it is possible for organizations to recognize and to document their knowledge about energy efficiency and to build up a base for a continuous improvement process. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Professor Pedro Filipe do Carmo Cunha