Did you take a recent look at your technical gas costs? For example (Liquefied) Nitrogen? Argon? Or special mix gases? These gases are costing much more than compressed air. And guess what: They can leak too! Leakages, and unintended use are just as common as in compressed air systems.
In a large production plant of stainless steel parts, we identified a savings potential of roughly 15,000,000 rupees per year. This plant uses Argon for welding robots. The maintenance department found out that many seals were dried out. Flexible hoses were not properly mounted and had small cracks after a decade of continuous usage. Relatively simply measures were taken to eliminate this loss.
Costs of technical gases compared to compressed air:
- Compressed air: 7 to 10 paisa per normal cubic meter
- Nitrogen (Purchased as Liquefied) can be between 100 rupees and 35 rupees per cubic meter depending on quality: 10 to 100 times more expensive
- Argon per m3 is 300 times more expensive!
So what can you do as a starting point? Invest in a flow meter with integrated data logger on the main header and the larger consumers. Log data for a couple of weeks, on a 15 minute basis or hourly basis. Look on the display around lunchtime or after working hours. Check the data in a simple spreadsheet program and do the math.
Common issues found in technical gas systems
Here is a simple list of common issues. They are fairly easy to spot. In some cases you might want to involve colleagues from production/ quality management once you start tweaking gas supply to production machines.
- Equipment not turned off during down time or weekends, purging air
- Leaking hoses on robots due to dried out rubber
- Leaking gaskets or swivel joints (robots, welding equipment)
- Over-usage of blanketing gas in a process (ovens, packaging machines)
- Blanketing gas not turned off while a production line is not working (reflow ovens in electronics industry)
- Laboratory or test equipment not turned off (He, Ar, N2 wasted over the weekend.
About Author
Imtiaz Ali Rastgar is an entrepreneur and is founder and chair of Rastgar Group. A manufacturing specialist and a consultant for marketing and exports. He is one of the best-known entrepreneurs of engineering sector in Pakistan.
