We enjoy watching the best in the world compete at the Summer Olympics. But even before the Olympics, the U.S. Olympic trials made us think about the time, energy and hours of training these athletes commit to being the best, which led us to consider what it takes to be the best in asset and energy management (yes, we honestly think this way).
We thought it would be fun to categorize asset and energy management success into Gold, Silver and Bronze levels. We may never participate in the Olympics, but we can strive to be the best at what we do each day. With that in mind, we put together tasks, processes and technology you would need to achieve each of the three medals.
Bronze:
- Track utility bills on a spreadsheet
- Install programmable thermostats
- Create a preventative maintenance schedule
- Have individual facility-level goals for asset and energy management
- Post start-up and shut down policies for hoods, lighting, HVAC, etc.
- Develop policies for refrigeration management during inventory and stocking of store coolers and freezers
- Manually check temperatures of walk-ins, wells and food, recording them a few times daily
- Purchase power from local utility
Silver:
- Track utility bills in an online platform
- Develop governance across your portfolio for temperature management
- Enforce preventative maintenance schedules
- Have portfolio level goals for asset and energy management
- Implement and enforce start-up and shut down policies for hoods, lighting, HVAC, etc.
- Implement and enforce refrigeration management policies for inventory and stocking
- Install refrigeration temperature sensors that can be viewed at regular intervals via a web based application
- Evaluate third party energy supply rates versus utility rates
Gold:
- Track utility bills in an online platform, participate in EnergyStar, and manage usage at the equipment level
- Control the temperature of every location in your portfolio 24/7 via a web based application
- Identify equipment performance issues early with web-based tools, adding them to preventative maintenance schedule
- Publicly state portfolio energy goals and track via a web based application
- Install a controller to ensure start-up and shut down governance is followed on key equipment at every location
- Set alerts to ensure refrigeration management governance is followed during inventory and stocking
- Receive a report each morning displaying multiple refrigeration temperature readings for the previous day, receive real-time alerts of temperature issues
- Actively manage your power consumption by monitoring and adjusting both morning start-up and nighttime costing schedules, reducing peak demand, and actively managing your power purchases
Olympians do not do it alone; each Olympian has a coach to help them push through difficult times and assist with developing a path to success. Similarly, in asset and energy management, we do not recommend going it alone: there are plenty of purpose-built tools and subject matter experts to assist with all aspects of the journey. Just as getting to the Olympics is not easy, obtaining an energy and asset management medal requires some effort but it can be done with dedication to the process, the proper support, the correct tools and achievable goals. And while you may not be rewarded with an actual medal, you’ll earn a great deal of experience and the respect of your team, which might be even better.
