It’s human nature to be tempted to bury our heads in the sand and wish our problems would go away by themselves. Some smokers, choc-o-holics and even some compressed air system operators choose to go by the old axiom “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” They’re attempting to negate the consequences of their actions by avoiding the facts entirely and staying uninformed. But the consequences speak for themselves; problem avoidance and lack of awareness can hurt your plant budget and profitability big time — in higher energy costs and lost productivity.
What are your costs?
Compressed air system equipment is notoriously lacking in cost-related instrumentation. Most systems include only an indication of system pressure and a few compressor temperatures. Missing are measures of compressed air flow and power consumption. This is much like automobiles used to be, when all you knew was how fast you were going and how much fuel remained, with a few idiot lights thrown in for good measure.
To read the rest of this Plant Services article, visit http://www.plantservices.com/articles/2011/01CompressorTraining.html
