Dear Maintenance… A Sustainability Story

Transcript

[Sheldon Young]
Welcome to No Footprints, a podcast brought to you by Alfa Laval. I’m Sheldon Young.

[Jason Moreau]
And I’m Jay Dizzle.

[Sheldon Young]
Jay Dizzle?

[Jason Moreau]
Sorry, Jason Moreau.

I just did it to make you, I wanted to throw a curve ball at you.

[Sheldon Young]
You did. You threw a curve, as usual, a little curve ball, Jay Dizzle. Yeah.

That’s a, that’s your, your performance name. Yeah. But we are here to talk about impact and to share the efforts and people behind making sustainability real.

Jay Dizzle, what’s going on in terms of your story? What tell me, tell me what’s, what’s new and fun.

[Jason Moreau]
Well, I found this one and I thought of you because you are always sort of, I think, as you’re advocating that sustainability doesn’t always have to be these big, complicated things. They can be these small changes that do have bigger impact. And I really liked this story.

This one comes out of a research project from the University of California, Santa Barbara. And they looked at container ships, ocean ships, and as you might guess, like most of our freight globally is still sent on these big container ships and they’re looking at ways to reduce carbon emissions, improve sustainability for these ships. And I think a lot of the things that I’ve previously read about have been about the ships themselves.

Like our company has technologies to help make the, the ship themselves more sustainable. This little sustainability hack though, was actually the port system. So apparently what typically happens is these cargo vessels race across the ocean to get to the port so that they can get all the containers offloaded.

It’s sort of a first come first serve system. It’s like a deli, right? Like you get there when you get there, take a number.

And what happens is the, the, the vessels are idling. They’re just kind of sitting there. If it’s a busy day at the port or what, what, what have you.

Right. And so the hack was literally, why don’t we just introduce a scheduling system at the port? Like making a reservation for a table at a restaurant.

So a ship doesn’t have to try and get there first in line. They already know here’s my time. Here’s when I can arrive.

Like nobody’s going to cut the line, so to speak.

[Sheldon Young]
Right.

[Jason Moreau]
And it had two impacts. Um, the ships weren’t idling as long in port, but also they didn’t have to go full speed across the ocean to get there first. So they could go at a slower speed, which produces less emissions, right.

It’s like driving 65 versus 85 in your car. Um, and early research indicates that this actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 16 to 24%. So yeah.

And so it is, and it’s, it’s pretty much a readily available technology. They tested it. This was during COVID.

They tested it at, I believe two of the busiest ports, uh, on the California side. So it’s already sort of been tested under pretty strenuous conditions. And so if more ports adopt this scheduling reservation system, uh, then it could have a massive impact on the Marine fleet.

So, and the software is readily available, cheap, right? Like, so it’s just a, this is a great solution. And like, like I said at the top, like it’s one of those things where it’s like small change, but really big win.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. That’s, that’s really fascinating. I think I have so many questions popping in my head, like, you know, they do, they know exactly how long it takes to load a ship or what, how much variation is it?

I mean, all the data, but it’s super interesting. I mean, I, I, again, I thought you, I almost thought you’re going to, you know, alpha Label or as an, as a company called storm geo that they, you know, were the weather that, yeah, basically they look at the weather pattern to say, this is the most cost efficient and, and efficient, you know, way to, to navigate, to avoid weather and, and saves, it saves energy. Imagine those two together.

It could be a really interesting, wow. Gosh, I still fun to hear this kind of stuff. I mean, it’s a, I love this part of our podcast because it’s like, we always find these weird new things.

And, uh, Good, good, fun stuff. My fun thing is pretty sure the Olympics are over. I lose track.

All I know is that my wife constantly has it up going on the, uh, uh, the television when I walk upstairs or whatever it is. And, um, uh, all I know is that they’re going on at some point. I don’t know when they end.

I think it’s what, three weeks, two weeks. I forget the time period.

[Jason Moreau]
It’s about, I think it’s a little over two weeks. I think we’re just about at the end of it.

[Sheldon Young]
Um, so the time, by the time this is, they’re long gone, but some good lessons. Let’s, I have just like a few, I’m gonna call it fun facts. Okay.

Okay. So the games we’ll use, I’m gonna ask you those questions. Don’t look at the answers, Jason.

[Jason Moreau]
Okay.

[Sheldon Young]
What percent of the venues are either existing or temporary?

[Jason Moreau]
Oh, um, guess fast. Okay. Sorry.

[Sheldon Young]
Uh, half we’ll say half 90%, which drastically cuts down construction waste, right? Cause a lot of times they’ll build these things one and you know, and they just kind of not really often not used for more things. So to me, that was fascinating.

They’re using 90% either temporary that they can take and reuse somewhere or, uh, uh, existing. All right. Organize or collaborating with local schools to teach kids about sustainability through Olympic theme programs.

So they’re using the platform to help promote the messaging. There was a carbon offset plan for the events that includes reforestation of the Italian app Alps. Oh, wow.

Right. Milan, Milano, uh, Cortina, 2026, the first winter Olympics to integrate the UN’s sustainable development goals into every stage of planning. Oh, that’s phenomenal.

What about that? Right. Yeah.

And then finally, of course there was a push to have zero single use plastics at all Olympic sites. So that’s, that’s one of their goals is to do that. So I thought those were five fun sustainability facts on the Olympics.

Uh, you know, it’s good to hear that, you know, you know, the Olympics are great. Uh, I love, I love watching the Olympics and it’s fun to have them, but you’re like, wow, gosh, there’s a lot that goes in that a lot of, you know, resources, you know, when people go to them, it’s a, you know, you’re just trying to manage all the people. I’m glad they’re actually taking the time in the planning processes to think about sustainability, how they can do that in a way that is low impact or lower impact.

Right. Uh, you can’t avoid impact altogether, but you can find ways to try to minimize it. Right.

That’s really kind of the key.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah. That’s great.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. I thought that was neat. All right.

Let’s get to our topic today, Jason. I wasn’t sure. Uh, we’ll see what the final title of this episode ends up being.

It’s a, it’s a tricky one to, to kind of title. Um, but the concept here is we’re going to talk about utilizing the power of, of maintaining things and ensuring that, uh, you know, efficient, they run efficiently and smoothly as a sustainability tactic. Okay.

Now this is going to be one of those ones. Um, I’m going to try my best to, you know, we work in the food, beverage, pharma spaces where we do our work. And so I want to talk about it from a business manufacturing point of view, but I’m also going to try to flip it examples around how that this principle might apply to a normal everyday person in their home or in their lives.

So go do my best. I want you to keep me honest on this and also please bring, bring your fun little ideas into the, into the equation as well. All right.

So we’re going to structure this a little bit. Um, well, he’s kicking it off a little bit around, you know, reliability equals sustainability. Okay.

That’s an interesting formula. Uh, does it? Yeah, I think, you know, it can be one of the biggest decarbonization projects you may have is fixing a bunch of small things, uh, to reduce impact, uh, through, through the losses.

Like if you’re walking through, say a factory, uh, I used to work in a really old paper mill was my very first job at a college and it was old. I mean, some of the building, uh, some of the machines are like 1905 vintage, you know, so just a few years old when I started, um, no, but you’d walk around seriously, you’d walk around in the basements and you’d see pipes with steam kind of spraying out in a little bit. You’d see lots of leaks.

You would see, um, you know, belt slipping and things like that. And you’re like, okay. You know, you’re like, wow, geez, I guess they’re old.

I mean, what are you gonna expect? Well, when you start seeing those in a really big facility, that adds up. Right.

Um, you know, even if, even if it’s something like sensors and you’re, and it’s not sensing what’s happening in the equipment appropriately and therefore it’s running off kilter and not quite to its highest efficiency point that all adds up and so when you start thinking about that stuff, we’re going to kind of approach this from, uh, some, uh, perspectives of things, you know, kind of short-term, medium, long-term, and we’re going to start looking at some, some ways to try to make an impact. That’s all right. So the hidden pipeline for maintenance to CO2.

All right. If you aren’t efficient, you aren’t sustainable. So if you’re doing extra pumping, extra heating, compressed air, that’s a huge user, uh, all that stuff, even reworking, if you aren’t producing things that are done right the first time, it’s all an impact.

So addressing those and looking at those kinds of things can have a huge. Uh, overall, uh, return, uh, both financially and sustainability wise. So what can you do?

Let’s dive in. So the silent sustainability killers, that’s what five silent sustainability killers, what I’m going to talk about. The first one is I mentioned it already leaks air, steam, water product.

So any continuous steam water leak can, can really can trigger quality problems. It can trigger just way. Steam itself is one of the big ones because you’re, it’s got so much energy in it that, uh, when it leaks, you’re just basically dumping money down a boiler is what you’re doing.

So looking for steam leaks is a huge way to make a big impact, both in greenhouse gas, um, but just, you know, it, this, the, the thermal cost of, of running a boiler is, is incredibly high. So walk around, do, do audible checks. You can often hear a steam leak.

It’s a, you know, a high pitch squeal or, um, you’ll see pressure, uh, wet spots on the ground. If your compressors are, um, seem to be running hot and heavy for like air, that’s another, another thing you can kind of walk around and see. Um, and then if you see something just like drips, you know, that, that’s your, that’s, you’re looking for water things to take, take a look behind things under things is a, is a seal on, on your pumps, are they leaking out water when they shouldn’t be?

[Jason Moreau]
Yep.

[Sheldon Young]
Okay. All those things add up, right? You can go through audit that stuff, write it down.

And I bet if you sit down and really understood each of those and did the math and put it in a spreadsheet, big impact. So those are, that’s a, the leaks are a big one. So let’s take the example of your, in your home.

Pretty simple. You get that dripping faucet, right? You’ve got that hose bib that’s driven up with dripping out in your, in your, uh, garage or outside or wherever it is.

Right.

[Jason Moreau]
Yep.

[Sheldon Young]
All that stuff.

[Jason Moreau]
That’s the old ring, uh, in the, uh, the toilet tank. Right. So the toilet, like it’s slowly draining out and it just keeps on refilling itself, refilling itself, even though you’re not flushing, like, yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Absolutely. That’s funny. I had that.

I have an example coming up. That’s a great one. Uh, yeah, stuff like that.

I mean, just not having efficient, uh, uh, maintenance of those, of things like that can, can just be, you don’t think much of them because they look like, don’t look like a lot by themselves, but when you add them up and add the concept of time to them can be, can be big sustainability killers.

[Jason Moreau]
And I think this here is like where you want to pay attention. I think some of these things that you see or experience every day, just become part of your background noise. And you don’t, you, you want to have an eye towards at least for my home, this sense of like caretaking.

And right. And it’s like, uh, like if, if that stuff is happening, it, it really bothers me and irritates me. And it’s just, it’s just part of what you need to do to, to make sure things are running efficiently and you’re not wasting money.

Like one of the biggest ones that happened to me was it was during the summer, obviously in summers here in Virginia can be pretty brutal sometimes. And the air conditioning just was not. Working like it, like it didn’t even feel like there was any air coming out of the vent.

Oh, come to find out I go in the crawl space and literally the duct work is no longer attached. Right. So like for three or four days where I’m like, is it getting hot?

What’s going on? It’s like, literally I’m just like pumping, you know, air conditioned air into my crawl space. Right.

Like, I don’t know how much I’m like, oh, like I just, yeah, that’s that type of stuff drives me nuts. And I think you almost kind of have to have that like sense of like, oh, that just drives me like, that’s a wasteful thing to do. And then, then that sort of, uh, immunizes you against like it blending into the background.

If it’s always that thing of like, no, no, no, no, no, that’s not right. Like, yeah. Think be like, be that like fastidious mechanic, you know, like just that, that person who’s just like, Nope, it shouldn’t be doing that.

That’s that’s because if it’s doing that exactly to your point, you are probably burning money and wasting resources and it’s for sure.

[Sheldon Young]
For sure. I mean, there’s no question you are. Uh, it’s just, you know, and I get, sometimes it’s like, you know, how do I do it?

And I forget and et cetera, et cetera. Well, again, we’ll get into some tactics in a little bit, but it’s, it’s going to be relatively obvious stuff. I think you just nailed it kind of on the head.

Jason is being a little cognizant and aware of it and having a process and a plan to do it will get you a long way. So that’s a spoiler alert. We kind of jumped to the punchline, but, uh, you know, that’s kind of how it’s going to roll out, but let’s talk about a few of the other aspects here.

Um, filing scaling, clog filters like, okay, things like this, um, in a factory or everywhere, uh, you know, a heat exchanger is something that a lot of these facilities will have. What it does is it takes hot things and cold things and it transfers heat between them and doing that there’s either, um, usually some metal tubes. They don’t have to be metal, but they often are, can be metal tubes.

It can be metal plates and the stuff that we sell here at Alfa Laval. Right. And oftentimes though, because you’re putting, uh, different types of liquids through them, it could be a, uh, something from like a cooling tower or a water source that maybe has some biological stuff in it.

It will do what’s called filing. So stuff will kind of build up on the surface and that what that does, it acts like an insulation and it, and, uh, it can prevent that heat transfer from actually happening. So if you’re trying to take a hot liquid and use it to heat up another thing and recover the energy from it, and that heat exchanger is filed or messed up, um, or plugged up even.

So you’re not getting enough flow through it. You lose the benefit of that surface area that, that, um, that, uh, part of the heat exchanger that, that transfers heat and what happens, you don’t recover that energy. And so you often have to make that up somewhere else.

Uh, let’s say you were preheating some liquid, but using that energy and you couldn’t get it all. Now you have to use steam somewhere else to heat the thing. So that can be, um, you know, watching out for that can be a huge impact.

A clogged filter requires a bigger pump to go through it. And quite honestly, it slows down your productivity. You may not get as much liquid through.

And so you’re, you’re, you’re wasting money there. Um, no scaling is similar to filing, but, uh, so things you can do. Obviously is look for this stuff.

You’ll are you, you know, what is something supposed to be? How is something supposed to be operating? Look at the performance.

Is it doing that? Have good gauges. Make sure your, your, your measurement devices are accurate and tell you the story you need to have.

Right. And then, okay. So what do you do about it?

You often have to go through a cleaning cycle and then, you know, there’s a, there’s procedure for that, but understand and keep, keep records on when that cycle is and be proactive about it, you know, every day or hour, even you’re not maximizing or getting at least, you know, there’s much as you can, there’s, you know, there’s kind of a drop off. Like things will be okay. They don’t get a little tiny where it’s okay.

And then all of a sudden they’ll kind of go off a cliff. Right. And at that point you want to, you want to get before it goes up, go, go, you know, goes down the tubes on you.

No, no pun intended. And so looking for that and having a good understanding of the way things operate and how often that happens will help you kind of get that done. Um, in home, for example, the one that, that pops into my mind is like the air filters in your home or car.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Okay. You just talked about an HVAC. Well, those filters, I’ve certainly been in places before where I know a filter has not been changed for possibly years.

You can see like the, they’re dark covered, you know, a thick matting of things, you know, number one, that’s not good for your lungs because you’re not, uh, you know, well maybe it is because you’re probably filtering everything at that point. Uh, but it doesn’t allow your, your systems to pump air efficiently. It’s straining all the pumps.

It’s straining all the equipment. It’s, it’s making it run off its efficiency point. And so you’re going to spend more money.

You’re going to spend a lot more money. I know buying a filter, it seems expensive, but it’s not as expensive as running your HVAC into the ground. Um, and, uh, you know, for that perspective, you have to think about, okay, it’s a sustainable choice is making sure I understand when it’s appropriate to change those filters out.

So that’s an example at home.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah. And I mean, the cost of a filter compared to the cost of the HVAC unit is fractions. And so, you know, I think at least for me, it becomes a, um, not so much the cost it’s, it’s a, uh, it’s just remembering to do it.

So like, whether you have like a home checklist of like, this is how often I, I do the maintenance on these things, right? Like a lot of people do that for their car. Obviously cars now come with a, like, Hey, it’s been this many, you know, it’s been 3,000, 5,000 miles since you last changed your oil, like whatever reminder system works for you is just going to pay dividends in the long run to sort of maintain the recommended maintenance schedule, like it’s not, it’s not made up, it’s like, literally this is how this machine not only runs optimally, but runs for as long as possible. Like when you talked about those machines in the paper mill, like, you know, you have to take care of a machine in order to get it to its maximum expected lifespan, you know, if you do zero maintenance, it’s not going to live that long.

[Sheldon Young]
Yep. Yep. A number, number three on my list here was, uh, I kind of grouped together, uh, misalignment, vibration, error, mechanical drag, or something like that.

Well, this is really oftentimes an electrical energy aspect, but again, oftentimes electrical energy is provided by a source that is, um, you know, a greenhouse gas driven, right? Where it could be, you know, coal or whatever, coal, oil, natural gas. You also have to think about, um, uh, the premature failures that happen, right?

Bearings often things that are rotating or pretty much everything is rotating, has some kind of bearing in there. A bearing is a load bearing thing. They roll and they are often lubricated.

If they’re things are misaligned, you’re often creating a stress on those and you’re creating a bunch of heat and friction. You’re going to prematurely, you make, make those things fail. Yep.

Um, that can be very expensive. Uh, the extra energy it takes to turn something that’s under stress like that, um, is going to be expensive. It’s going to cost money.

Right. Um, and you know, every time something has to be maintained because of a failure, it’s often going to take a lot of time because you run it something to failure. Uh, you know, you’re often shutting the machine down, doing a difficult procedure to, to take those things off and replace them, restarting, and then startup procedures and all that kind of stuff.

Whereas if you understood that there was a misalignment, you could have had that thing last, you know, many times more or longer than it did. Um, yeah, for sure. And, uh, uh, you know, it’s, it’s a very common thing.

You can lots of ways you can do it. You can take measurements to understand, uh, what everything is aligned. You can put vibration sensors on things.

Right. A condition monitoring kind of device that will determine and tell you, Hey, this thing is out of whack. It’s something isn’t quite right.

It’s vibrating. It’s not lined up right. You need to take action.

Right. So a preventative task or something like that. The one I think about, uh, popped in my head, I guess for doing this at home is running your tires too low in your car.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Right. Not often one that you can, uh, you know, know immediately. Sometimes you can see it.

Sometimes your, your, your carpet gets too low. We’ll tell you if you have a modern car. Don’t often you have the old tire gauge, you can walk around and test though.

That’s, you know, worst case that, you know, that is the way you do it. But the reason you want to is first of all, you’re putting extra wear on tires. Tires can be very expensive, right?

It’s also creating more friction. So it takes more gas to run your vehicle when the tires are not properly inflated. You also put yourself potentially in danger, right?

Because if something, if you lose your, if your grip isn’t right, because the tires are too flat, you can put yourself in danger. So of course, very important things to think about from that perspective.

[Jason Moreau]
Yeah. This one, I can tell you a lot of funny car stories, but I won’t, but yes, check your tire pressure, maintain your tire pressure and for sure the alignment. Yeah.

That’s a, that’s a, that’s one that, uh, I don’t know. I think a lot of people don’t check, but like you can see the uneven wear on the tires, right? And yeah.

And just basic maintenance of rotating the tires when it like, so yeah, good one. Absolutely. It’s one I wouldn’t have thought of.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, kind of in line, uh, going down the road to the next one.

Number four here, poor lubrication. And this kind of goes a little bit with the alignment and bearings, but forgetting to do the proper lubrication on things, uh, particularly when it’s, it’s a rotating element or something like that can, can have devastating consequences, uh, leaving old grease, uh, in that hasn’t been changed out. And it’s assuming it’s going to be okay.

It’s, and it starts to degrade and separate. You often can look at something, uh, that has big bearings on it. If you see like, if it’s greased and you start seeing oil coming out of it, you’re like, okay, it’s separating.

And that’s, you’re almost too late at that point. It damages is often on its way to being done, but understanding lubrication, understanding temperatures. A good lubrication procedure often keeps, uh, things in, in check from a temperature perspective.

So having a program where you actually go and check these temperatures is, is important in understanding what’s happening there. You know, is there too much or too much can be almost as bad as too little, frankly, so you have to think both, both spectrum, having a good lubrication procedure is, is a very, very important to a lot of rotating equipment, uh, in your, in your homes, the car example is probably another good one. I have a mixer.

I do a lot of baking. As I’ve told you before, though, I have mixers that have planetary gearboxes inside of them. And you have to make sure you go in there.

Um, on, you know, it’s not a lot, but depending on how much you use your mixer and do a grease change, it’s not hard, just probably takes, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I have, I have a little kit that I’m preparing. You know, I know it’s probably getting up on time, uh, to go and do that.

You basically, you know, spend half an hour, you take the thing apart, you take the old grease out, you put the new grease in, and I’ve seen lots of pictures of people taking them apart and you look inside and it’s just, the grease is kind of just deteriorated. And that’s at that point, you just have kind of dry gears running against themselves and you’re bound to break them. At that point, they’re going to wear, you’ll get metal filings that come out, all kinds of stuff.

Right. So just understanding where there’s a need to do something like a lubrication schedule, um, is important in this having a plan as to knowing when you need to do it is a, is a good thing. And knowing how it’s YouTube is a wonderful thing around the home.

If you’re curious about something, uh, you know, there’s a whole series of, of things, you know, teach you how to do stuff like this for sure.

[Jason Moreau]
Or, I mean, quite honestly, I’m, I will self admit that, uh, as, as good as I am about some maintenance things, I’m really not good at others, nor do I care to be. And I am happy to pay somebody to do that for me. So I think it’s just like respect the maintenance schedule and decide, am I doing that or am I hiring somebody to do it?

Because look, hire somebody to do it is a perfectly fine solution. If you want to go do something else with your life, but just respect the maintenance schedule greatly. Yeah.

[Sheldon Young]
Again, it’s bad for, it’s bad for your, your, uh, wallet. It’s bad for the environment because you’re, you’re utilizing more resources and energy. Often it’s the energy aspect of things around the house or water or something like that.

Right. Um, it’s very important to understand the longterm impacts of both of those things. Yeah, for sure.

Um, and then the final one, again, I kind of alluded to this a little bit already. It’s kind of bad instrumentation or sensors that just aren’t working right. Um, and just specifically, oh, you walk into a factory of some kind, you’re going to have a lot of this.

You’re going to have sensors that read temperature and pressure. They’re going to measure vibration. Sometimes they’re going to tell you if something’s working or not, they’re going to tell you the result of a process, all of those things.

And if you don’t have a, a way to understand and, and, and make sure those things are operating appropriately, you can’t often do some of these other things we’ve talked about. I can’t tell you how many places I’ve walked into Jason, where the gauges and stuff that are before and after a piece of equipment, that’s really important piece of equipment. They’re just not working.

They just don’t work or they aren’t there. Sometimes they aren’t there.

[Jason Moreau]
So they never put them in or they just, those are the, those are the easy scenarios if they’re not there or they’re clearly inoperable.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah.

[Jason Moreau]
How do you know if the gauges are there, but they’re not accurate? That’s the point. Yeah.

Is there tools to check the gauge that like, yeah. Okay.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. You can certainly calibrate the sum that depending on the type of gauge it is, you can calibrate it, break it. You can take it off.

You can check it against a, a known standard, even in the field, if it’s a temperature gauge, for example you can sometimes take, use it to take the actual temperature of something, measure it versus what you’re being told.

[Jason Moreau]
Okay.

[Sheldon Young]
Um, there’s things like that. That’s certainly calibrated. It’s a good question.

It’s, it’s not, like I say, I say it like it’s easy. It’s not always easy, but the impact of not having them in place can be very high because you don’t have an understanding. And when you don’t understand, you can’t recognize the impact, right?

You’re just kind of saying, well, it seems to work. Okay. Or, you know, uh, you know, uh, yeah, you know, we kind of take it down and open it once a year.

That’s better than nothing, right? You’re, you’re doing a maintenance on a schedule, but you’re not truly understanding how long it’s not operating appropriately and the losses that can occur might be fairly high, frankly. And so having a way to, to, to kind of really measure that, uh, you know, it’s an investment sometimes you have to always consider that, but understanding the way things work and the way to diagnose and understand impact can have an incredibly good, uh, positive benefit in the long run.

[Jason Moreau]
Yep.

[Sheldon Young]
So around the house, um, well, this is really a lot of, a little bit of everything you kind of, uh, that we have around the house. I mean, your thermometer, thermometer, thermostat, if that’s not accurate, I, again, I go back to my favorite thing, baking, if my oven temperature gauge isn’t working right. You know, I actually have, uh, some, some manual ones that I can kind of take a temperature of the oven and see, um, just to make sure, right.

But if it’s not working right, it’s going to ruin food. It’s going to not operate right. Um, if you’re, uh, uh, you know, things that measure water, uh, you, you mentioned that the, the, the, the toilet, uh, uh, float, sometimes that toilet float isn’t working right.

That’s a lever. That’s a, that’s a sensor.

[Jason Moreau]
Right.

[Sheldon Young]
And if that isn’t operating or get stuck, it’s just going to keep running and go into the overflow and you’re going to put a bunch of water down the drain. So lots of, lots of things to think about, right. Uh, you know, but the key just kind of stepping it through and, and, uh, you know, putting, I kind of want to wrap it up in like a little case story here.

Uh, so imagine tank, uh, cleaning a tank. It’s something happens in almost every kind of factory you can think about. Right.

So imagine if you have inefficient, poor methods of cleaning your deck. Oh, I just tossed a spray ball and I run it for an hour and it’s good. Okay.

Are you, is it, does it work? Well, does it, you know, tell them, ask yourself the questions, am I doing this the most efficient way? Am I understanding how much it’s utilizing to do this?

Am I operating and getting the result I want? Right. All those are good questions to ask yourself about any kind of thing you’re, you’re investigating.

So let’s say you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re not doing it in an, in an efficient way, you’re going to get potentially a poor cleaning. Well, what does that mean? You could, you know, worst, worst case is you may contaminate a product.

We’ll ruin a batch of something because you didn’t, you didn’t clean it well enough that that can be super expensive and even dangerous in some cases. Now, again, people in the food industry are very careful. Um, and so, you know, it’s a pretty like, let’s go, let’s take a non-food product or something.

You can still ruin it. If you don’t, if you don’t clean a tank, well, you can have something that’s going to contaminate, may change a color off, or it may, uh, give you bad properties, um, you know, in a less, I would say less critical industry, you still have to think about this stuff because the impact is there. It’s just not as dangerous as it is in say a food or pharma.

Right. Sure. But still you may not get the right, a good product result.

It may take you longer to clean something. Well, what does that mean? Well, sometimes, you know, time is money, right?

That’s a, that’s a non, uh, renewable resource, right? Water that water’s often hot water. So you’re putting a lot of steam and energy into heating that.

So if you’re using a lot more watering and the chemicals that go with it, so chemicals is another, if you’re using a lot more and you’re doing it inefficiently, that’s, that’s a lot of money. Cause you may be doing this dozens of times every week, thousands of thousands of millions of gallons in some cases. And then finally, remember everything that you, every extra gallon of water that you use that you didn’t need to use, what’s that turned into Jason?

You know, waste, wastewater. Yes. And what do you do with wastewater?

You have to treat it. That again is more time, energy, chemicals, money, all that stuff. So it just kind of, you’re putting the bow on it in that case that, you know, thinking about efficiency, thinking about maintaining equipment, thinking about finding ways to reduce the amount of impact, uh, by taking care of the things you have, right.

Can be a fantastic way to improve your sustainability. Don’t underestimate it. That’s the thing.

Everyone, a lot of people in sustainability are looking for those big changes that they can make. Those big things that they can pull and, and, and do big swap outs for something as simple as looking and taking care of the things you have can be a very powerful mate, uh, sustainability lever. And you should be looking for ways to pull that lever.

Yeah. A hundred percent.

[Jason Moreau]
Also, do you do this as an engineer or somebody who, like, do you start to like have an affection for the machines and the things that you take care of? Oh yeah. Right.

Like, and I just, I don’t want the machine to be sick. I don’t want the machine to die. Like I just, I like, I want that thing to keep going.

[Sheldon Young]
Like, I just, how many people name their cars, Jason. Yeah. Right.

[Jason Moreau]
I just, it feels like I failed if, if something breaks that, you know, and, uh, no. And, but I mean, so, so the fact that. I kind of have that weird like relationship anyway, but that is a positive sustainability thing is kind of cool.

And also like, I know you do this all the time and I know we chat about it, but like, I didn’t realize like all the different areas, like, as you’re like, in your work, like you’re going through and like looking at all the, like how many different little things in areas that you’re actually like scoping out. Um, I think that’s great. I think that’s really cool.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. Uh, what, the great thing about it is, is so many opportunities, right. And again, as when we talk about making sustainability real, you don’t have to move a mountain, you just need to move little mole Hills and whether it’s, you know, swapping out an old piece of equipment for a new one.

That’s one way for sure. But now everyone has the capital to do that. Just taking care and maintaining things and honestly work with your service providers, the people that, that know the equipment really well.

There’s a lot of things you can do to give you optimum performance for what you have. Optimize first and then worry about capitalizing and purchasing later. Right.

Um, that’s step one. I mean, not everyone can happen and has the, have the capital to do things in a very fast cycle. So put it in your capital budget and that may be, you know, X amount of time out.

Um, but in the meantime, you know, let’s, you’ll pull in the resources that you have and, and make an impact because again, Shocker surprise, Jason. It’s not, you’re not just doing it for sustainability. You’re doing it for your bottom line.

[Jason Moreau]
Absolutely.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. Sustainability is just, they’re tied together. It’s a, it’s part of the strategy.

If you think with a sustainability brain, you end up with a finance outcome. Yeah. Okay.

And so, uh, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a lesson in finance as much as it is sustainability.

[Jason Moreau]
I like it.

[Sheldon Young]
Yeah. And I could go on and on, but again, how do you take action again? You’ve, you’ve kind of hit the nail on the head.

It’s, it’s really about planning. It’s really about planning, collecting data and understanding what’s happening and then quantifying the impact that you will get by, by making that change. That lets you then prioritize and put together a plan, uh, that has a financial, uh, tie to it.

We’re going to do this on this, this way. We’re going to put these sensors in because this is the most, your most, uh, result for the input and slowly work your way to where you kind of have a great understanding of what’s going on so that you can reap the sustainability benefit and capture the financial benefit. All in one.

So you kind of, you’re on the home. It’s, it’s just like you said, it’s have the checklist, know where your problems are. Do the walk around, know where to look for leaks and all that fun stuff.

And if you’ll do the sit and listen, are you hearing that toilet run a little longer than it should? You know, all that kind of stuff.

[Jason Moreau]
And I honestly, I think when you, when you do the larger, like, you know, capital investments, right? Like trust and listen to the people who you have helping you. Like one of the bigger projects that I did was, um, uh, putting new siding on my home.

Yeah. And I thought like I had this, like, and I had a horrible old siding. Woodpeckers were getting at it.

Like it was just horrible. And I was like, you know, okay, you’re going to pull all of that down. Right.

And you know, so what you’re quoting me to put up new siding, that includes taking all that stuff off. Right. And the guy was like, no, why would you do that?

He’s like, we’re going to put up, you know, we put up like a, an insulating material. He’s like, yeah, the siding has like woodpecker holes, but by and large, it’s structurally solid. So if we put insulating material over it and then we put the new siding over that, he’s like the R value of the home, like it would be even more energy efficient than if we removed, right.

So like it was, I was like, oh, you’re right. It’s another layer. He’s like, yeah.

And I’m like, and I don’t have to pay for you to haul it away. And it doesn’t go into a landfill. And it, right.

Like, it was just like, oh man, that’s right. And, but like, I, I didn’t think about that. I was just thinking like, I want the old stuff out of here.

I need new stuff. Right. So, you know, trust the people who are the experts in their field.

And I mean, you know, ask, ask questions, but I’m like, if you have good partners, they’re, they’re there to help you make good decisions. And so that was, that was an example for me. And I, you know, I can only imagine the dividends it pays when you’re in a large facility, you know, you, you, you aren’t wrong.

[Sheldon Young]
And again, I know we, we, we touched briefly on the concept of, um, a, uh, you know, replacing things and, you know, don’t underestimate that there are cases where it makes good sense, put it on your quote capital plan, whether it’s a personal or business one, like for example, the home example I wrote down real quick is like you’re an old, an old heat pump versus a modern, efficient one, right? The payback on that could be four years, which seems like a long time, except you run this thing for 15 or more, and it can save you like, you know, uh, 1500 bucks a year or so multiply that it pays for itself pretty quick. And then every year after that is benefit for yourself and it uses less energy.

It’s, it’s good for the environment. So again, not everyone can afford to do these things. I get it, but run the math, run the numbers and, and, and understand that impact and have yourself a plan as to where you want to invest to, to make the most benefit for, for yourself and for the environment.

So yeah, good stuff. All right, Jason, I talked to way too much. Um, let us move on to the end.

[Jason Moreau]
I was going to say, if you let me, I wanted to pitch a, cause you said we didn’t have a title for this one.

[Sheldon Young]
Oh, pitch it. Oh, by all means pitch a title. Uh, a love letter to maintenance.

A love letter to maintenance. It will go under consideration. I don’t, I don’t just, I don’t dislike it.

[Jason Moreau]
I’m, I’m glad this isn’t a, I don’t dislike it. Yeah. Your face is saying a different thing.

[Sheldon Young]
I’m thinking about it. No, I’m not wincing. I that’s my contemplated face.

I like it. We’ll see. We’ll see where this lands.

People will know by the time it releases.

[Jason Moreau]
All right. Well, I appreciate that you’re taking it out of advisement, even if that doesn’t become the official title, that’s kind of, that’s what I’ll think about it in my head as, because, uh, no, and I appreciate you, you kind of, uh, you, you threw this one at me. And I didn’t really have a lot of time to think about the topic before we were talking about it.

And, uh, I really enjoyed it. I actually learned a lot. I appreciate it.

[Sheldon Young]
Well, good. Well, let’s hope the, uh, listeners do as well. And, you know, again, if you enjoyed this episode of No Footprints, we’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Tell your friends as well. Do the thing, you know what to do? Like subscribe, follow all that great stuff.

And, uh, you know, share it with your friends. Now let’s get more listeners to come and join the party here. Sustainability is a lot more fun, uh, as, as a group activity.

So why don’t we do that? If you have anything you want to reach out to us, feel free. You can do that at nofootprints.podcast@alfalaval.com.

Alfa Laval spelled a L F a L a V a L. And with that, Jason, I’m going to go check my, uh, my filters on my, uh, HVAC.

[Jason Moreau]
Oh, thank you for the reminder. I will as well. All right.

It’s time.

[Sheldon Young]
That’s a good one. Bye-bye.

[Jason Moreau]
Bye.

[Sheldon Young]
Our guests come from many industries and companies, as we’re talking about how the world makes sustainability real. Our company Alfa Laval is a global supplier of process solutions. So it’s very possible that the organizations our guests are with may use Alfa Laval or even our competitors’ products.

This does not mean that we, the hosts or Alfa Laval are endorsing any of the companies, guests, or the specific ideas that we discuss.