The Challenge
An injection moulding facility with five compressors operated two shifts Monday to Saturday, with full shutdown on Sundays and public holidays. Monthly electricity bills showed no significant reduction on shutdown days.
Two compressors were running continuously every Sunday. One was connected to a legacy cooling water circuit that no one had thought to isolate during the original installation. The other was serving a mould temperature controller that the night-shift team habitually left energised rather than following the shutdown checklist. Combined, the two compressors consumed approximately 840 kWh every non-production day — electricity for which there was no productive output whatsoever.
What Changed
Compressor runtime, motor current, and delivery state monitored continuously. Automated alerts when any compressor ran during a declared shutdown window. Shutdown compliance reporting by shift team.
The alerts made the behaviour visible to management for the first time. The night-shift team had been leaving equipment energised because the shutdown checklist was paper-based and unverified. Once monitoring showed the cost — approximately ₹7,200 per non-production day at local tariffs — the operational change happened quickly. A digital shutdown checklist was implemented, and compliance reached 100% within the first month.
Results
within one month
from checklist compliance
never previously known
“Factory energy waste during production hours is expected and managed. Factory energy waste during shutdown hours is the kind of invisible loss that compounds for years because no one sees it in the right context. Monitoring compressor runtime against production schedules is one of the simplest, highest-return interventions available — but only if you have the data to make the connection.”