With the focus on challenging themselves to make processes more efficient, a group of workers from the Oxygen, Air and Nitrogen Plant (POAN) of Codelco's Caletones Foundry, El Teniente Division, successfully tested an initiative that resulted in significant economic and energy savings.

“Thanks to the measurements and methodologies promoted by Operational Excellence, we saw that there were indicators that we could improve. Originally we were operating with four blowers that supply air to the foundry converters and we detected that we were using more energy than we needed to consume, so we began to study the indicators, we did some initial tests and they turned out well,” explains Wladimir López, Head of Operations at POAN.

These tests involved stopping using one of the blowers - which inject the necessary air to the converters that carry out the copper fusion and conversion process, where at high temperatures, the red metal is separated from other minerals and slag - without affecting production in the flow and pressure variables.

“This meant a huge energy saving, which also implies a reduction in the costs of the process. Since August we have been operating in this way without any problems, without affecting the air lines,” says operator Miguel Ponce.

Pedro Sandoval, head of the POAN Unit, explains that, in economic terms, this initiative meant savings of 100 thousand dollars per month: “We eliminated paradigms, in the sense that we were perfectly able to maintain the operation with three of the four teams. I also emphasize that this started with the workers, who understand and internalize that the use of energy must be rational, with the idea of supporting energy savings and being more efficient.”

Communication is key

Achieving change is not always easy, and this case was no exception. “Sometimes people are reluctant to change, but we managed to convince them with a lot of communication, talking to them and showing them the numbers. Some of them did not believe at first that it could be achieved, but we were determined to do it,” says Rodrigo Ríos, an expert operator at POAN.

His colleague, field operator Aldo Mallea, agrees: “Unity is strength. The transfer of information is key and we did well, because we were very clear about how everything worked and we were able to explain it.”