INGENIEUR
How to attract industry’s attention
In order attract a company’s attention, we have to
understand its structure and internal relationships,
it cannot be a black box. Who is the owner? Is it led
by an effective management team and are staff
assigned work in support of the owner’s vision?
If we reach the company we might have to deal
with financial managers as well as site managers,
with technical as well as with marketing people.
Thus, depending on their respective professional
backgrounds and education, very different drivers
will attract their attention. These drivers can come
from inside the company as well as from outside.
Internal drivers for energy efficiency
These can be situational factors, e.g. all kinds of
problems affecting the core business (problems
with quality, processes, production, resources) or
opportunities (end of technical lifetime, extension
of production, new buildings, new products, new
personnel). They present a situation in which a
company might have to invest. In that case why
not link energy efficiency to it?
External drivers for energy efficiency
These include all kinds of pressures (financial,
legal, market) but also incentives (subsidies,
awards) or positive examples (from suppliers,
other companies, planners etc). With pressure a
company has to act, while successful examples
can provide an impetus for imitation.
In most cases these drivers present situations
which involve at least one of the stakeholders,
e.g. when facing a technical problem, a company
has to contact a supplier for new technology,
maybe a bank for money and a consultant to
give support. These business contacts can be
used as a “carrier” for energy efficiency. Figure 2
indicates the services that can be provided by the
stakeholders.
How to make industry act?
Whether energy efficiency measures are realised
by a company (or not), it is in the end decided
by the owner and the management team. Some
critical success factors (CSFs) required to satisfy
the crucial needs of the management are shown
in Table 1 below.
Some of these CSFs are relevant when
considering the interaction between the company
and its stakeholders (see Figure 1) and effective
tools have to involve at least one or more of these
issues.
Effective tools/instruments for industrial
energy efficiency
Using our knowledge about how to address
the industry’s CSFs and how to attract their
attention, we can try to identify effective tools
and instruments to increase industrial energy
efficiency. Preferably these tools or instruments
should act via the company’s own networks, trying
to integrate energy efficiency into their existing
Money related factors Customer focused factors
Profitability
Productivity
Stock market reaction
Cost effectiveness, etc. Customer loyalty
Image (incl. environment), etc.
Factors affecting the core business Management related factors
Product innovation and quality
Procurement
Process reliability
Outsourcing, etc. Risk/quality management
Human resources (health, security)
Policy and strategy
Information/Data management, etc.
Table 1: Critical success factors for industrial management
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VOL
2019
VOL 78
55 APRIL-JUNE
JUNE 2013