The ultimate goal of any company is to offer a competitive product thich is perceived to have the best value for money. Companies have two ways to increase their chances of achieving this. On the one hand, by increasing their quality and/or, on the other hand, by decreasing price. There is no doubt that price is one of the main determinants of consumer decisions, but it is not always possible to reduce it.
Market prices are set by demand, but they are closely related to costs, being energy one of the most importants. It is common knowledge that the value per kilowatt hour (kWh) is increasing worldwide and the incremental trend shows no signs of reversing, at least in the short term.
As a variable over which there is no direct control, companies are constantly looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption, and the implementation of new technologies is one of them. But how can technology help to increase or maintain production using the same or less energy? For example, through the reduction of production times due to process efficiency. If the necessary information is not available, a process takes a determined amount of time, but with technology providing that missing piece of information, time can be reduced.
In the case of foundries, a large part of the production time is closely related to the number of castings that are made and this number is directly linked to the precision in the composition of the charges. The greater the accuracy of the charges, the fewer the number of castings required. ALEA, our process optimisation software, makes it possible to increase the precision and considerably reduce the number of castings required, arriving at the desired chemistry in less time. Therefore, positive internalities and externalities are generated at the same time. The internalities due to the possible reduction of costs, which favours all the actors involved in the process, and the externalities, by using less energy, contribute to the preservation of a scarce resource in favour of the environment. Get to know us!
