With new developments in digital technology, the manufacturing landscape is quickly evolving. To remain competitive in the industry, companies need to provide more value to their customers than their competitors do. That means increasing organizational efficiencies and decreasing operational costs like natural gas and electricity.
Orion Plastics is getting smart about energy efficiency in their products: hockey rinks, vehicle dashboards and interior panels, marine and recreational vehicle parts, garden and agricultural equipment, and more.
Located in St. Albert, Alberta, Orion Plastics is Canada’s largest sheet extrusion company with shipping across North America and overseas. The company serves industries including the thermoforming companies, distributors and fabricators that make these everyday items.
Orion prides itself on ensuring the highest quality products at competitive prices. Looking to reduce energy waste and increase the level of energy training and awareness throughout their operations team, Orion began an energy efficiency review. Right away, Orion got to work forming an energy team, establishing and announcing a new energy policy, and setting 28 energy targets for their fabrication plant.
Quality training and quality data
Two key changes they identified right away were creating a new Metric Board System to track their actual outputs on each production line and completing LED lighting conversions across their 63,000 square foot plant.
Another important change was the installation of a new measurement system to determine overall equipment efficiency by tracking the uptime, downtime, and set up time for each order. Orion also set a major focus on employee education, designing and implementing a comprehensive in-house training module customized to their operations.
“The review has really helped us improve our efficiency in terms of production. We have some of the tightest turn-around times in North America. Less waste means better time management and that helps us deliver our products more quickly and efficiently,” said Ronald Kumar, Plant Manager.
In the span of one year, Orion has saved over 382,000 kilowatts of electricity (a seven per cent decrease) and nearly 1,300 gigajoules of gas (a 17.7 per cent decrease). These savings not only help the bottom line and improve business competitiveness, they help Orion track and evaluate their progress, enabling data-informed continuous improvements to be made over time.
Orion is currently exploring automating manual processes and will be focusing on further increasing the level of training and awareness within their operations team. They are also in the process of introducing a daily management system (DMS) to ensure continuous quality improvement and advance employee engagement. Through a DMS, improvement becomes the work of everyone, every day, as the system can empower staff to regularly address and identify problems that may impact quality or workflow.
Learn more about the ERA’s energy efficiency program Energy Savings for Business, and how it can benefit your business.
In 2020, Emissions Reduction Alberta assumed increased responsibility for energy efficiency programs targeting small- and medium-sized industrial and commercial entities. This project was funded by the Government of Alberta, and it is an example of the kind of project that could be funded through ERA’s newest program, Energy Savings for Business.