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WESCO delivers for the Wood Products Industry
Maintenance
Opportunity: Critical equipment went down due to failure of a synchronous motor starter at a paper mill in Washington.
WESCO Solution: A WESCO Account Representative out of the Kennewick Branch went to the mill to assist and was able to track down an after-hours phone number for the factory that manufactured the parts needed to repair the starter. He contacted the factory, located in Asheville, North Carolina, at 11 P.M. EST and was able to expedite the order and arrange transportation, reducing downtime by approximately 7 hours. At a cost of $14,000 per hour, this translated to $98,000 in downtime savings, so that even after paying $60,000 for a dedicated plane to transport the needed parts, the customer still realized a net savings of $38,000.
Result: $38,000 Downtime Savings!
Working
Opportunity: A wood products company wanted to reduce the expense of managing low-dollar/high-usage electrical-component inventory at its plywood and stud mills and particleboard plant in Oregon and paper mill in Washington.
WESCO Solution: The WESCO Kennewick Branch provides vendor-managed inventory (VMI) services at all four locations, relieving customer employees of involvement in the management of consumable electrical stock. At no charge to the customer, WESCO personnel take inventory, place orders, deliver and restock shelves on a weekly basis for roughly 400 items at the plywood mill and 300 items each at the stud mill and particleboard plant, resulting in annual labor savings/productivity improvements of $5,850 at the plywood mill and $4,680 each at the stud mill and particleboard plant. At the paper mill, where WESCO manages more than 2,000 items, the weekly order is charged to a P-card, thus eliminating an average of three purchase orders per week. Because WESCO keeps inventory constantly replenished and readily available, staff electricians now make fewer and quicker trips to the parts shelves, increasing their productivity as well. All told, the paper mill realizes $60,840 in labor savings/ productivity improvements and $12,480 in transaction cost reductions annually due to WESCO VMI.
Result: $87,530 Combined Annual Savings!
Energy
Opportunity: A paper mill in Washington has 300 light fixtures using 400-watt metal-halide lamps.
WESCO Solution: WESCO recommended switching from the 400-watt lamps, as they fail, to Philips 360-watt replacement lamps that offer the same light output and lamp life. The 360-watt lamp costs $10 more than the 400-watt lamp, but at a conservative 4 cents per kWh, will yield a $32 net energy savings over its lifetime. Once all 300 fixtures have been converted, the mill is projected to realize an energy savings of $4,200 per year — without any decrease in light output or increase in maintenance.
Result: $4,200 Annual Energy Savings!
Maintenance
Opportunity: A paper mill in Washington has numerous motor starters that are critical to operation and expensive to maintain.
WESCO Solution: Each time a starter’s coil resistor failed, the customer had to purchase both the coil and resistor as a kit from the starter OEM at a cost of $1,468.13 per kit. Because in most instances only a new resistor was needed, a WESCO Account Representative arranged to order just the resistor direct from the manufacturer. The customer’s cost is now $50 per resistor — a savings of $1,418.13 over the kit price. During the last annual maintenance shutdown, the mill’s electrical department performed a preventive maintenance change-out of 20 resistors, saving $28,362.60 in material costs due to the new lower price. In another case, the mill changed the motor size on a 30-year-old motor starter, necessitating the resizing of its current transformer (CT) and panel meter. The replacement cost for the original CT and panel meter was $6,640.84. WESCO investigated the feasibility of — and suggested — instead using a current-design, three-phase, modular CT and a different but equivalent panel meter at a total cost of $639.34. This substitution saved the mill $6,001.50. In a similar situation, the mill needed a replacement potential transformer. The price from the OEM was $3,319.83. WESCO arranged to order the same item direct from the manufacturer for $1,811.25, saving the customer $1,508.58.
Result: 91% Cost Reduction — $35,872 Total Savings!
