Do you need consultants?

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?