SPAX, known for high-quality wood screws, relies on precise compressed air monitoring with flow sensors from ipf electronic as part of its energy management strategy in order to sustainably reduce energy costs. SPAX has been producing around 50,000 screws a day in Ennepetal and Gevelsberg as a globally renowned brand since 1967.
A lot of compressed air is required for the mechanical production of the screws. For over 10 years, the company has been recording its energy consumption using its own software, among other things. Initially, electricity consumption was measured, then gas and water were added in order to analyze the distribution of energy consumption.
The majority of the approx. 500 machines in production are supplied by a central compressed air station. Compressed air consumption used to be measured at department level and later at each individual machine. Initially, measuring devices with a switching output were used for this purpose, but their installation and handling proved to be too cumbersome and complicated. The decision was therefore made to use flow sensors with analog output from ipf electronic.
Parameterizable flow sensors such as the SL900020 and the SL920020 with freely scalable analogue output (4...20mA) enable simple and very precise measurement of compressed air consumption in order to sustainably reduce energy costs for compressed air generation. The compact solutions for air (also gases on request) are available in seven versions. The consumption meters are set using two capacitive buttons on the display, which shows the flow rate, consumption, speed and temperature.
The simple installation, commissioning and not least the intuitive operation of the sensors ultimately convinced SPAX. The company therefore invested in 48 devices, which were mainly installed in the press shop with high compressed air requirements. Based on the measurement data, it quickly became clear that some machines had a high compressed air consumption even in standby mode.
SPAX also discovered immensely high compressed air consumption in newly purchased machines due to incorrect system settings. These problems could be rectified in a targeted manner based on the measurements. In addition, SPAX created a priority list for leak detection based on the collected measurement results in order to eliminate leaks in the compressed air network even faster. Thanks to a specific package of measures and the flow sensors from ipf electronic, the company says it can save around 15,000 Euros a year in electricity costs.