Gear Manufacturer Finds Savings

March 8, 2011
Forest City Gear Inc., in Roscoe, Ill. has more than 100 computer numeric control (CNC) machine tools manufacturing gears (some of which are on Mars on the rover). 

The company actually exports to China. As part of its sustainability and competitiveness programs, the company installed a bank of power conditioners to service the electrical requirements of the machines, which saved 20 percent on the electric bill.

Other sustainable initiatives include:

  • Changed lighting system from T-12 to T-8 using 25, 28, and 32 watt lamps. 
  • Tinted windows with low-Emissivity film 
  • Replaced several heating/air-conditioning units with highenergy efficient units 
  • Installed programmable thermostats throughout the building
  • Replaced less efficient air compressors with larger more efficient units 
  • Installed Oberland oil filtrate/cooling unit for gear grinding,using outside air for chilling the oil any time ambient air temperature is 50 F or below
  • Turn off lights during lunch period
  • Turn on/off lights as required for bathrooms, lunch room, conference room and warehouse 
  • On weekends and major shutdowns, adjust heat/air to minimum needed 
  • Regularly check for compressed air leaks 
  • Implemented and follow the principles of Lean Manufacturing
  • Spin oil out of chips to recycle 
  • Reuse most all received packaging dunnage, except for Styrofoam
  • peanuts, which are recycled locally
  • Eliminated bottled waterservice for drinking and now used filtered tapwater

Sponsored Recommendations

Food Production: How SEW-EURODRIVE Drives Excellence

Optimize food production with SEW-EURODRIVE’s hygienic, energy-efficient automation and drive solutions for precision, reliability, and sustainability.

Rock Quarry Implements Ignition to Improve Visibility, Safety & Decision-Making

George Reed, with the help of Factory Technologies, was looking to further automate the processes at its quarries and make Ignition an organization-wide standard.

Water Infrastructure Company Replaces Point-To-Point VPN With MQTT

Goodnight Midstream chose Ignition because it could fulfill several requirements: data mining and business intelligence work on the system backend; powerful Linux-based edge deployments...

The Purdue Model And Ignition

In the automation world, the Purdue Model (also known as the Purdue reference model, Purdue network model, ISA 95, or the Automation Pyramid) is a well-known architectural framework...