Title: Utilising Six Sigma for energy conservation: a process industry case study

Authors: Prabhakar Kaushik, Chandandeep Singh Grewal, Paramjit Singh Bilga, Dinesh Khanduja

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, N.C. College of Engineering, Israna, Panipat, Haryana, India. ' Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, Punjab, India. ' Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana, Punjab, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India

Abstract: In a global environment, organisations are under continuous pressure to control costs, maintain high levels of safety and quality, and save energy. Energy conservation is a means to control costs and increase efficiency. Process industries in general are big consumers of different kinds of energy. In this paper, Six Sigma methodology has been applied in a thermal power plant seeking energy conservation. De-mineralised (DM) water in these plants is an expensive input material. It has been found that a 0.1% increase in DM make-up water consumption increases the generation cost by approximately US$0.2 million per annum. DM water is taken as a main Critical-to-Quality (CTQ) factor. It is found that Six Sigma project recommendations brought down the mean make-up water from 0.90% to 0.54% of Maximum Continuous Rating (MCR), accruing with it a comprehensive energy savings of nearly US$0.74 million per annum.

Keywords: critical-to-quality; CTQ; define; measure; analyse; improve; control; DMAIC; process industry; six sigma; thermal power plants; energy conservation; demineralised water.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSCA.2008.018418

International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage, 2008 Vol.4 No.1, pp.18 - 34

Published online: 21 May 2008 *

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