Assessment Info

Assessment Process

The assessment is divided into three separate time periods:

• Pre-Site Visit Preparation
• Site Visit
• Post-Site Visit Report and Follow Up

Pre-Site Visit

Once your plant has been approved for a site assessment, our team will reach out and ask for a year’s worth of electricity, natural gas, water, and sewer bills from your plant. These bills are necessary for the team to establish a baseline of annual energy, resource use, and costs. We will analyze your utility rates and use trends to see if there are any anomalies or rate issues which should be flagged. Your energy use will be compared to variables such as plant shift schedules and seasonal weather changes to look for strong correlating factors.

The team will also send a brief pre assessment survey which will ask for plant shift schedules, major energy using equipment, and ask if there are specific projects or issues the plant would like us to look at when we come. All of this information will then be written up in a pre-assessment report which we will present onsite during the day of the visit to plant staff.

Site Visit

Once we have your utility data and pre-assessment survey we will schedule a day to come out to the plant. As a rule to give the team enough time to complete data entry and write the pre-assessment report, we require a minimum of one week’s worth of time between when pre-assessment data is delivered and when the team visits the plant. Once we arrive at the plant our site visits follow this general schedule:

• Opening Meeting:

Ideally we meet in a conference room to start the visit. We will ask plant staff to give a brief rundown of their facility including all relevant equipment and processes. Then our Lead Student Engineer on the team will present the pre-assessment report and its findings to the plant staff. This presentation is meant to be an interactive conversation with plant staff: We want to know what you agree with, what surprises you, and most especially what are the reasons for any large energy use or costs that we point out.

• Basic Plant Tour:

We will go on a tour of the facility with goals to see all large energy users and plant process flow. We prefer to start at the beginning of process lines and walk through them from raw materials to finished materials to get the best feel for how the plant energy flows.

A Note on Safety: The IAC takes the safety of its students very seriously. All students will be equipped with steel toed boots, helmets, safety eye wear, and hearing protection as needed before they come on site.

• Strategy Session Over Lunch:

Once the tour is complete the team will meet to talk about what they have seen and strategize for the afternoon on what parts of the plant need to be revisited for a closer look to obtain more data. This usually coincides with lunchtime so students usually talk things over while they eat.

• Afternoon Data Gathering:

Students will break into smaller teams to gather data for the equipment that they are responsible for. Ideally students will go with plant personnel who know the systems they are assessing so it would be beneficial to have several plant employees available at this time.

• Wrap Up Meeting:

Students will hold a short final meeting with plant staff to ask any final questions, talk about the list of potential savings measures that have been identified during the visit, and thank staff for their time.

Post-Site Visit Report and Follow Up

After the site visit, the team will return to run through calculations on the list of measures which has been gathered. They will estimate annual savings in units reduced and cost reduced, provide an estimate of first cost for each project, and include some basic economics such as simple paybacks and internal rate of returns. All of these measures will be written and included into a report which will also incorporate the pre-assessment report. This report will be delivered to the client no later than 60 days after the date of the site visit. During this period students may follow up with plant personnel with additional questions as needed.