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For many decades general manufacturing has been the life blood of the USA and most countries around the world. They have stepped up at times of war and depression to build whatever was needed and have adapted to many changes in technology to serve their markets as well as to remain competitive.
General Manufacturing in my opinion is still a major life blood of the USA as well as most other countries around the globe, but they face many more challenges now and into the foreseeable future.
The computer and technical world we live in has made many aspects of our life much easier to conduct business, such as personal computers, cell phones, robotics that have zero errors per year, Programmable logic controllers ( PLC) that watch over production lines, and Variable Frequency Drives (VFD) that can speed up or slow down production as needed.
This is just a small amount of the newer technologies that help the manufacturers save time and money, as there are Auto transfer switches to reduce outages and thousands of other devices to help commercial & Industrial facilities operate at their best.
Over the past 35 plus years and almost 8,000 PQ studies later I have seen the Good, The Bad, and many times have seen The Ugly when it comes to Power Quality inside of General Manufacturing Plants. Most manufacturers have onsite engineers or electricians whom in most cases are very good at their jobs and do a good job at keeping the plant running. My hat is off to them for the job that they do.
However, the vast majority have very little knowledge when it comes to Power Quality and how it can be a game changer in how their plant can operate at a higher level of production, efficiency, safety, etc. Power Quality is a very broad subject that cannot be fully explained in this short article, but for General Manufacturing I consider Power Quality as a needed aspect to be the “Best that your facility can be”.
This means making sure harmonics from Non linear loads such as VFD’s, PLC’s, Robotics, and many other devices that are mentioned above are not the cause for data errors, heating issues for motors or conductors, logic restarts, tripping, reduced life of equipment, and in some cases catastrophic failures, etc.
Identifying Power Quality concerns before they become a very expensive problem is the key to remaining competitive and efficient. Protecting equipment from not only internal transient voltages, but also utility generated transient voltages is one of the best investments that can be made.
Manufacturing facilities have hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment inside their buildings, and in some cases many millions of dollars of equipment that needs to be protected from dips, sags, surges, transients, poor grounding,utility faults, utility load switching, lightning storms, and even many issues that can be generated from other equipment inside their own facility. Many utility issues are beyond the utilities control such as cars hitting poles, animal related faults, and causing outages and transient voltages, or storms ,etc.
A Power Quality study is a fraction of the cost of a single piece of equipment inside a manufacturing facility in most cases. A PQ study
For more information contact APQ at 813-723-2776.
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