Advanced Quality Approach For Energy Management

Abstract

Quality, energy and environmental management are important success factors in the current competition. They are interrelated and cannot be considered in isolation but must be considered holistically and continually (on-line). This paper argues that quality improvement approaches can be applied in the energy management context. Companies need tools to achieve energy and environmental management goals by realizing energy efficiency targets and CO2 emission reductions. Such combinable tools available to support these actions are: regulations, quality management techniques, such as lean six sigma, benchmarking, FMEA Methodic, voluntary agreements, labeling and standardizations such as EN 16001 and ISO 50001. The new approach “Total Energy Management” covers all functions and areas of a company associated with energy purchase, consumption and management.  It is argued that time proven techniques that have helped reduce quality costs and improve market share can also provide similar results when applied to energy management systems.