Energy Efficiency
The Office of Engineering Outreach's Business Assistance provides on-site environmental and energy-efficiency assessments for businesses to help reduce costs and protect the environment.
Practicing energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important for reducing costs and protecting the environment. The Office of Outreach and Recruitment in the College of Engineering provides on-site environmental and energy-efficiency assessments for businesses. These assessments are focused on reducing environmental and energy use and related costs, as well as promoting the installation of renewable energy sources, where applicable.
Importance of Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency reduces both financial costs and environmental costs. Energy efficiency protects the environment by conserving and protecting natural resources while strengthening economic growth through more efficient energy uses.
Energy Efficiency Assessments
Energy Efficiency Assessments connect agencies and organizations in local communities and small and medium-sized manufacturers with experts from federal agencies, states, and regions to:
-
help reduce energy consumption
-
minimize carbon footprints
-
prevent pollution
-
increase productivity
-
drive innovation
When manufacturers, communities, and utilities collaborate, the benefits reach far beyond manufacturers’ production lines.
Training
The onsite training project offers practical strategies and techniques for organizations to learn how to improve results—waste elimination, energy reductions, quality enhancement, building efficiency, delivery of value to customers—while achieving environmental performance goals. Hidden wastes—sometimes buried in facilities and support functions—can be significant, as can the costs associated with them. Environmental wastes are often a sign of inefficient production, and they frequently indicate opportunities for saving cost and time. Both lean, environmental and energy metrics are introduced into a current state value stream map to help identify a roadmap to process improvement efforts. This training teaches people without an environmental or energy background how to “see” new wastes for the first time.
This three-day project will work with a cross-functional team to measure and identify areas for improvement within the production, information and waste flow of your operation, establish a vision for the future, and develop a plan to achieve the vision.
The scope of this training includes an environmental analysis that focuses on:
-
Raw materials used in products and processes;
-
Pollution and other environmental wastes in the value stream; and
-
Flows of information to environmental regulatory agencies.
Value Stream Mapping
Value stream mapping (VSM) serves as a critical tool during the assessment process and can reveal substantial opportunities to reduce costs, enhance production flow, save time, reduce inventory, and improve environmental performance.
The assessment team including individuals from New Mexico State University, the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Centers (TMAC), and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s El Paso Border Office, leads a collaborative effort to create a current state VSM of the identified product or process line. The map examines areas that offer the greatest potential improvements such as inventory, inputs, outputs, wastes, non-value-added steps, worker safety issues, energy consumption, bottlenecks and rework.
Once the current state VSM is completed, the assessment team then creates a future state map of the identified product or process line that includes lean and green improvement recommendations made by the group. The team assumes a future state map is not limited by capital restraints, representing a fully optimized line in its ideal state.