Introduction

From a business perspective, if the pandemic has shown us anything, it is how important digitalisation and sustainable practices are to operating a resilient business. In fact many businesses now acknowledge just how integral digitalisation is in achieving sustainability.

Digitalisation presents a whole host of opportunities for businesses not least when it comes to their compressed air system. Here digitalisation is transforming the way a compressed air system can be controlled and managed. Sophisticated compressed air management systems are able to remotely and intuitively orchestrate an entire compressed air system for optimum energy efficiency and maximum equipment life. In short this ensures the equipment reaches its full useful life while keeping maintenance requirements, the associated energy costs and CO2 emissions to a minimum - all of which contribute to the achievement of a businesses overall sustainability goals. In this edition of the KAESER report you can learn more about the latest advancements in compressed air management systems (turn to page 12).

Our cover story with Stuff - one of New Zealand’s leading media organisations - also demonstrates how digitalisation and sustainability work hand-in-hand. Stuff is on track to see a 40 percent reduction in compressed air associated power consumption at its Petone Print Plant, by implementing recommendations from auditing the existing compressed air system. This has included upgrading compressed air equipment, adding an Industrie 4.0-ready compressed air management system and implementing an air leak management programme. You can read the full case study on page 3.

Compressed air leak detection is in fact an essential but often overlooked maintenance activity that can have a huge impact on the overall energy efficiency of a plant. But, to be effective it must be managed long-term. We share an extract from our recent whitepaper ‘Locate. Repair. Repeat.’ on page 8 which explains why this is so important and how it can be tackled. Finally on other news - we are now closing in on the completion of the construction of our new state-of-the-art Head Office facility in Melbourne. And, here we are on our own sustainability journey in building a facility that will be carbon neutral. Most recently this included the installation of 98 kW solar panels on the roof of stage 1 of the build. Up and running for a few months now, our recent electricity bill has proven our success so far - demonstrating a 90 percent drop in our daily energy usage from the grid!

We hope you enjoy this edition!

Peter Eckberg, Managing Director