WORKSHOP: Energy Reductions using Lean Thinking

Sponsored by

Organized By 

  • Department of Sustainable Biomaterials at Virginia Tech

Goal

 The purpose of this workshop is to inspire new visions and strategies which address the most pressing energy challenges for contemporary society; it will create new ideas for usage of Lean Principles in reducing energy use and costs. It will also promote collaboration between scholars working across disciplines on Lean Thinking and Energy.

The Lean House

Key Values of Workshop

  •  Attendees will have a better opportunity to understand lean and potential energy savings with the implementation  of lean principles into their process.
  • Presentation of an Energy toolkit to identify wastes related to energy, environment, and the processes.
  • Attendees will be exposed on “How to use Lean principles for Energy Savings”  using real applications
  • Participants will be introduced to Energy Management Systems and their benefits

Tentative Agenda

September 27, 2012. 9:00 am-4:30 pm.

  • Welcome and overview
  • Current and future scenaro of Energy in Virginia. Joseph Jones, Director of Executive Affairs. Appalachian Power.
  • Lean Thinking Principles. Henry Quesada, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech
  • Break
  • Energy Audits using Lean Thinking. Henry Quesada, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech
  • Energy Management Systems. Tyler Gill, Enernoc Systems
  • Lunch
  • Industry case study I. Brian Bond, Associate Professor, Virginia Tech
  • Industry case study II. Jon Bluey, Building Science Project Manager, Community Housing Partners.
  • Closing comments and questions
  • Adjourn

Relevant to

  • Plant Managers, Quality Engineers, Process Engineers, Procurement Managers, Supplier Chain Managers, Purchasing Managers, Plant Engineers, Energy Managers, Energy and Environment Engineers and Medium Enterprise Manager
  • Anybody who is interested in energy savings

Venue

Roanoke Higher Education Center

108 North Jefferson Street
Roanoke, Virginia 24016
(540) 767-6100

Registration

$50. Includes coffee breaks, lunch, and materials. To register, please follow this link. Please contact Dr. Henry Quesada at quesada@vt.edu  if you have any questions or need more details.   CEU will be offered for this workshop.

If you are a person with a disability and desire any assistive devices, services or other accommodations to participate in this activity, please contact Dr Henry Quesada at (540 231 0978) during business hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. to discuss accommodations 5 days prior to the event. TDD number is (800) 828-1120.

RESEARCH BRIEF: Contextual Innovation Management

by Johanna Madrigal, jmadriga@vt.edu

Understanding how to manage innovation is vital when innovating is the strategy to growth and to remain competitive (Drucker, 1999), thus for a successful innovation management model some authors stated that the idea of a single mainstream approach is no longer useful for the fast changing environment in the market. Based on this (Ortt & Van der Duin, 2008) recommend two aspects to be considered when managing innovation. There are:

(http://www.innovationmanagement.se)

1. Definition of the context Innovation management can take place internally and externally.

Internally, the strategy and the organizational structure are key aspects of the organization’s culture therefore they have a great impact on how innovation is managed. With the strategy, an organization can determine if in terms of innovation, the firm wants to be an imitator, a leader or a follower. Also, how an organization is structured, impacts how innovation processes are held (i.e. innovation process per division, centralized innovation process). In terms of external environment, organizations will have to consider terms such as copyright, local laws, type of governments (i.e. egalitarian, authoritative), and legal agreements with other countries (Chiesa, 2001). It is not an isolated process anymore. Just like the evolution of species, innovation management is facing the world approach.

2. Managerial decisions in different contexts

Being an innovation manager means that decisions will be taken constantly within different contexts, having two levels they impact: strategic level where decisions are made before any innovation process starts, and the operational level where decisions are made during the innovation process shaping the outcome on the run. By understanding these contexts, a firm must develop an exhaustive professional profile for the innovation managers. Managing innovation based on contexts brings many advantages since managers can separate for standard approaches which tend to be too rigid and include variations such as the latest scientific research or the adequate timing for product introduction. Also contextual innovation management will enable more flexible processes, including “trial and error” mode as something acceptable in the innovation process. However, as in every approach there are some disadvantages as well. Using contextual innovation management may result in having different approaches with the same organization, which will increase the level of difficulty making innovation happen.

References

Chiesa, V. (2001). R&D Strategy and Organization: Managing Technical Change in Dynamic Contexts. London: Imperial College Press.

Drucker, P. (1999, September 25). Innovate or die: Drucker on financial services. The Economist.

Ortt, J., & Van der Duin, P. (2008). The evolution of innovation management toeards contextual innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management, 11(4), 16.

RESEARCH BRIEF: Origins of Supply Chain Management: First 20 Years of Research

by Edgar Arias, PhD Candidate, earias@vt.edu

Origins of Supply Chain Management: First 20 Years of Research The concept of Supply Chain Management ( SCM) is fairly new in the business literature; Giunipero et al. [1] and Mentzer [2] indicate that it was initially introduced in the 1960s by J.W. Forrester, in his book Industrial Dynamics, where the author established that success of industrial companies was intrinsically related to the “interactions between flows of information, materials, manpower and capital equipment” [1]. Nevertheless, after this initial effort to define the term, approximately 20 years passed before for the actual concept of “Supply Chain Management” to be addressed by scholars and practitioners in only a “handful” of articles between 1985 and 1987 [1, 3].

The end of the 1990s was characterized by an exponential growth in SCM research. Several literature reviews [1, 3] concur on the significant growth in the appearance of publications addressing the subject, particularly since 1999. In 2006, Burgess et al. [3] circulated a literature review where 100 peer-reviewed articles were randomly selected to study the nature of SCM publications available at the time. The group of researchers determined that out of the total sample chosen, only a small fraction were articles dated from 1985, and a total of 77 were published between 1999 and 2003. Figure 1 depicts the time distribution of publications based on Giunipero’s [1] research, which accounted for a sample size of 405 articles, covering the years between 1997 and 2006.

According to Mentzer [2], at least three factors may have contributed to the increase in interest of scholars and practitioners on the fundamentals behind the concepts of SCM in the early 2000s: trends on global sourcing, emphasis on time and quality-based competition, and their respective contribution to a greater environmental uncertainty. Globalization of suppliers and customers has brought an additional set of variables to consider in order to effectively managing business functions such as procurement, logistics, manufacturing, sales, marketing, etc.; which has posed a challenge on multinational firms to secure sustainability in highly competitive environments. Lead-time and quality, both understood as potential “market qualifiers”, are considered by Martin and Towill [4] as fundamental elements of a lean supply (chain) and therefore necessary to enable cost as a market winner , also identified by Kaplan and Norton [5] a as one of the key elements for any productivity-based financial strategy. The globalization of supply chains in combination with an increased emphasis on competition based on agility, summed to a fast pace on technology and economic condition changes, is what according to Meltzer’s perspective, it is creating the business intricacy that helped SCM become a popular area of study [2].

Continue reading “RESEARCH BRIEF: Origins of Supply Chain Management: First 20 Years of Research”

RESEARCH BRIEF: Reducing Energy Inefficiencies Using an Energy Management System

Shawn Crawford, MS Candidate at Virginia Tech Department of Sustainable Biomaterials. Contact Shawn at shawn88@vt.edu
 

Petroleum (oil) is the largest U.S. primary energy consumption followed by natural gas, coal, nuclear electric power, and renewable energy (EIA, 2011). Electricity is a secondary energy sources produced by these sources. Some of the main energy consumers in the U.S. are residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. Industry accounts for one-third of the energy used in the country, 28% of that energy comes from natural gas and 14 % comes from electricity (EIA, 2009). Electrical demand growth is projected to increase at about 1% per year through 2035, while from 2005 to 2009 cents per kilowatthour increased by 1.24 (EIA, 2009). Due to a continually increasing demand for energy sources and a limited supply of those sources, energy prices are expected to increase (EnerNoc, 2011).

Figure 1. Electricity consumption over a 6 day period in a manufacturing facility

 Energy Management System (EMS)

An Energy Management System or EMS provides a company constant data feedback on their energy consumption. Depending on the type of EMS, energy consumption can be tracked all the way down to 5 min intervals. The more detailed the EMS the greater potential for improvements. Imagine and EMS that provides a company’s natural gas consumption every hour as opposed to a power company providing the information monthly. Some benefits of an EMS include; being able separate consumption rates, able to identify high consuming areas, able to make daily adjustments to improve monthly bill, automated system automatically manages/adjust to improve energy inefficiencies, and able to create new process improvements to increase efficient energy use. Figure 1 shows a snapshot of an EMS.

Managing Energy and Process

Fostering innovation and creativity should be an ongoing project for managers. An EMS provides the tools for a manager to take employee innovation and put it to the test. Innovative employees provide solutions to ongoing problems associated with the business, finances, process, and product, because they are the experts at their job/task. Providing employees with real time feedback showing how their improvements have helped to save money motivates employees to continually improve. This is crucial in sustaining an atmosphere of continuous improvement.

Continue reading “RESEARCH BRIEF: Reducing Energy Inefficiencies Using an Energy Management System”

Workshop: A Competitive Edge: Reducing Energy Costs in Hardwood Manufacturing

  • Workshop: A Competitive Edge: Reducing Energy Costs in Hardwood Manufacturing

  • Presented by: Virginia Tech Wood Science and Forest Products Department
  • Location:  USDA Forest Service Wood Education & Resource Center
    301 Hardwood Lane
    Princeton, WV 24740

Date:   March 22, 2012

  • Fee:   $50
  • Registration:   Online go here
  • Details at:  Please go here for more details
  • More information or questions:  Contact Brian Bond at (540) 231-8752, email bbond@vt.edu
    or Angela Riegel at (540) 231-7107

Why attend?

Energy expenses are the third largest cost for the US forest products industries, after raw materials and labor. Over the last decade, electricity prices have risen at an average annual rate of 1.4%, diesel prices by 9.3%, and prices for natural gas for industrial use by more than 100%. Natural gas and electricity account for about two fifths of total energy consumption of the wood products industry. These higher energy costs undoubtedly negatively impact the industries profitability, which has also been significantly impacted by other issues such as hardwood stumpage prices, higher transportation costs, increasing government regulations, a challenging economic situation, and the ongoing globalization of markets. Given the trajectory of energy prices and the energy intensity of the US hardwood industry, energy consumption and the resulting costs, strategies to reduce energy consumption should be a priority issue in order for our industry to remain competitive.