Ardagh Implements Water Flow Intelligence
Ardagh Glass Packaging – North America has implemented Water Flow Intelligence at two of its facilities to bring new insights and analytics on water usage to its glass container production operations.
The company’s strategy to partner with Ecolab and adopt new IoT technology reflects Ardagh’s efforts to remain on the cutting edge of sustainability in the packaging industry. Its goals include reducing potable water use, recycling more water, improving efficiency, reducing operating costs and maintaining product quality.
Water Flow Intelligence is a digital service that provides real-time visibility of water usage at the enterprise, plant and asset levels to help achieve sustainability goals. It is built on the ECOLAB3D intelligence platform, utilizing IoT-enabled devices to gather and transmit detailed data via secure, cloud-based connections.
“With Water Flow Intelligence, we are beginning to understand what impact we have with our water operations,” said Gene Siler, Manager, Plant Engineering – Operational Excellence for Ardagh Glass Packaging – North America. “To reduce water usage, you have to be able to measure it. We believe we are now on the right track to truly understand our consumption.”
“The company reached out to us to map out its water processes and identify where smart meters would have the biggest potential to measure water impact,” said Blaine Krause, senior corporate account manager at Ecolab. “The process began with installing smart IoT meters and transmitting data via a secured cloud connection to be analysed by Water Flow Intelligence. After about three weeks of refining the data and making adjustments, Ardagh began to see actionable insights into its water operations.”
“There is a huge opportunity in both limiting and reusing the water in our manufacturing process,” Mr Siler said. “We can fix our processes and we also can fix our infrastructure for reuse capabilities.”
Currently, Ardagh is piloting Water Flow Intelligence at its Pevely, Missouri and Henderson, North Carolina locations, with plans to expand to at least four more facilities in the short term, completing as many as possible later in 2021.
Ardagh hopes to eventually expand the service to all of its North America locations.
Caption: Water consumption is being mapped at Ardagh Glass – North America sites
