23rd Oct 2019
Advanced Engineering has walked away with the sustainability runner up award at the 2019 Make UK Manufacturing Awards. This is a fantastic achievement and validates all our efforts to cut the company’s carbon footprint. During a ceremony at the Make UK Midlands & East Dinner on 17 October, our Quality Manager, Andrew Stevens, took the stage to receive plaudits on behalf of the team for the innovative work to drive the sustainability agenda.
The Make UK Manufacturing Awards recognises the best of British manufacturing and engineering and celebrates the work these businesses do to drive our economy. The prestigious awards are a highlight of the sector’s events calendar and being crowned amongst the top businesses in the region helps cement our place as a leading light in Midlands manufacturing.
Judges were impressed by how Advanced Engineering had made improving energy efficiency a strategic priority, leading to lower consumption and a 25% reduction in our carbon footprint.
Prioritising sustainability is not only the right decision in the context of helping address a climate emergency. It sits in line with our wider business strategy to put the needs of customers at the heart of our operation
Issues around efficiency and sustainability are now high up the agenda for automotive OEMs. The sector is striving to reduce the carbon footprint of their vehicles and when Tier 1 suppliers audit their supply chains, environmental credentials are now under much greater scrutiny.
At the same time, energy prices are having an increasing impact on our bottom line, especially when operating more than 20 high-consumption 5 and 3-Axis machines. April 2019 also saw a significant increase in the Climate Change Levy (CCL), adding between 3 – 4% to the cost of energy.
As part of a push for continual business improvement, we identified key issues around energy consumption and efficiency. Taking a closer look at our bills was quite a shock. We discovered we were being penalised a significant amount of money for taking more from the grid than outlined in our contract.
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce introduced us to The Low Carbon SME programme at Aston University. Their team is committed to supporting SMEs like us to identify and implement energy efficiency improvements.
We’ve been working with the programme since May 2018 and have since slashed our overall carbon footprint by 25% and reduced electricity costs by £15,000 per annum.
Academics came into the business, analysed our bills and made the leadership team sit up and think about the impact excessive utility costs were having on the business and planet. The team went on to assess our power requirements so that we could renegotiate our contract with our utility provider.
But the real value of embarking on the programme was in driving energy efficiencies. Diagnostic testing highlighted an issue with the Power Correction Factor (PCF) on our electricity distribution network. This meant that we were having to feed more power than necessary into our machines.
With the help of a grant from the Low Carbon SME project, we purchased a custom-made PCF unit to lower usage by correcting the wave form of electricity coming into the site.
We also secured a grant to install 88 new and more energy efficient LED lights before attention turned to our machines. We borrowed an Ecomponent data logger from Aston to understand exactly how much energy each piece of machinery was using and how that linked to working patterns.
We worked with machine operators to find ways of using the equipment more efficiently. We are proud of the way staff have responded and embraced the sustainability agenda. New investment, training and a change in culture has helped us to cut electricity consumption by 87,650kWh, which equates to a cost saving of £12,000 a year.
The Make UK sustainability award helps validate our work and highlights the value in accessing external expertise and best practice. We’ll continue working with the Low Carbon SME project until February 2020 to investigate additional ways of reducing our carbon footprint. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels and welcome the opportunity to explore new ways of addressing our environmental impact and stay ahead of the game.
