Do you need a consultant?

If you want to look at your energy efficiency, you might employ an energy consultant whose expert knowledge will hopefully short circuit any investigation or initiative.

However, what that consultant/expert will do is to take a look at your operations and your processes and try to identify where your energy usage and costs are high, and where savings might be made.

This is a bit like a ‘waste walk’ where you go round your plant/factory looking for signs of waste (preferably using ‘waste’ in its wider sense, as in the 7 wastes of Lean).

A waste walk is simply a focused inspection of what the your factory do and how it do it - using direct observation of the work involved.

An ‘energy walk’ can achieve similar results - the very focus on energy can reveal waste or savings opportunities - even without the help of an external expert.

So, why not establish a schedule of such walks with a different focus each time. Observe and talk to operators and supervisors about their views on the focus factor.

You might find you discover quite a lot about your organisation and its productivity - without spending money on consultants or advisers.

What’s have you got to lose?