Upgrading our Technology
- A large investment in voltage optimisation system has resulted in reduction of 500 tonnes of C02 per year.
- In the past few years alone, we have invested £4,000,000 to date in new energy efficient equipment.
- We replace all our factory and office lighting with LED systems.
- An air flow control system has been installed. This further reduces energy consumption and improves the working conditions.
- Several insulation upgrades have been installed, including our warehouse in 2021.
Improving our Systems
- We ensure our quality standards are the best in the business. This leads to minimal customer rejections, resulting in reduced energy required to process returns through transport costs.
- The amount of water that we expend is quantified and recorded for monthly review. This helps us to reduce the quantity of water wastage and continually define areas for improvement.
- We are members of our national trade association’s “zero carbon” committee.
- As we are able to provide cast and machined products, we have optimised communication between both production processes to reduce coolant and energy costs by synchronising production demands.
- Our logistical expertise ensures that we fit the maximum numbers of parts per bin and therefore optimise our usage of transport for delivery.
Local Initiatives
- Our unique external pond feature has been dredged to enable the local wildlife to benefit.
- We continue to employ personnel from the local area and have a long-standing apprenticeship programme with links to nearby schools and colleges.
- On weekends, CastAlum’s internal roads and car parks provide the ideal training site for our local cycle club!
- We ensure compliance with external validators of our environmental credentials, including ISO 14001 certification. We also work with the Powys environmental board to identify ongoing improvements.
Looking to the Future
- We are always monitoring and improving our key performance indicators. Specifically, we look to optimise our Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) and Cost of Quality (COQ) to reduce our overall energy usage.
- Our cooling towers and pumps are scheduled to be upgraded in 2022, which will result in lower energy usage through innovative technology.
- Much of our factory has been insulated already, but we are continuing to identify areas that we can improve and minimise energy wastage.
- We have an ongoing plan to improve our own understanding of CastAlum’s overall carbon footprint with external assessment and validation.
- In-house initiatives have been suggested to further reduce our use of transport and packaging during 2022.