RR Donnelley Print Solutions
Pontiac, Illinois
Dave Norem
University of Illinois, Champaign
The RR Donnelley Print Solutions facility located in Pontiac employs about
700 people. The Pontiac facility specializes in the production of short
run magazines, trade magazines, inserts, book pages, direct mailings, and
other publications utilizing high-speed offset web lithographic printing.
The intern was asked to conduct an extensive energy audit to find opportunities
for savings and to update maps of the sanitary/industrial sewers.
Results:
A comprehensive energy audit revealed that one major opportunity for
saving energy was the compressed air system, which operates almost
entirely year round. An ultrasonic meter was used to help identify leaks
during
times of plant production. Plant downtime was used to examine the behavior
of the compressor during a “no-load” time period. It was determined
that 80% of the compressor was working to maintain pressure in the system.
This indicated that there were a lot of leaks in the system.
The intern recommended that by adopting a leak detection and repair program,
the facility could save over $55,000 per year. The program should include:
- Using an ultrasonic leak detector at least twice a year to
identify air leaks and repairing those leaks at the earliest opportunity.
- Repairing and recalibrating existing flowmeters on the compressed airlines
to allow for real time tracking of the plant’s compressed air resources.
- Decreasing and keeping the compressed air system pressure
as low as possible.
The facility had been contemplating the purchase of an additional compressor
to maintain demand. By repairing leaks and decreasing system air pressure,
the facility will not have to purchase an additional air compressor.
In addition, this should save over $100,000 per year in electricity
consumption.
The intern updated the existing map depicting the sanitary/industrial sewers
on site. Any spills or unusual contaminants in the sewer lines can now be
traced back to identify the source of the contamination.
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