Surrounding companies can also benefit from outsourcing demin water and steam utilities
1. The Challenge: Greater needs, a reduced carbon footprint but no space.
Following its commercial success, Solutia a market-leading performance materials and specialty chemicals company will expand its production facility in Ghent.
In order to reach the required production capacity, Solutia will need every square metre of its site for its core business: the production of PVB film for laminated glass. However, this increase in production means Solutia now faces a second challenge: an additional demand for demin water and steam.
Thirdly, Solutia’s corporate responsibility engagements and environmentally responsible ethos commit the company to create an eco-friendly site. Hence, it needs to limit its carbon footprint.
The combination of these three challenges have led to a detailed re-examination of Solutia’s water management. As Solutia intends to concentrate on its core activities, the company has appointed Induss to assess its water management and consumption and to put in place a reliable solution.
2. The Answer: Induss III, a semi-mobile water and steam factory
After conducting a detailed water audit together with Solutia, Induss determined that Solutia’s water and steam consumption required far-reaching adjustments. Yet the solution was already close at hand.By constructing off-site, energy-efficient production installations, there would be immediate benefits in terms of cost reduction and the environment.
Induss will built two installations and place them on a nearby site. In practice, this means transforming two containers into two fully operational semi-mobile steam and water treatment plants that will operate entirely independently from Solutia. The new combination will be known as Induss III.
Induss will take ultimate responsibility for the entire project, as is customary for a full outsourcing contract. This means managing the inspection, licensing, supplier selection, mutual contracts and the construction and operation of Induss III, including transmission pipes between the various sites. In return, Solutia will pay per m³ of supplied water and per ton of supplied steam. Utility costs will be directly linked to production rates and closely monitored, budgeted and allocated.
Induss has already found the optimal location for its brand-new water plant and has drawn up the necessary contracts. Induss also dealt with all aspects of the negotiation process and the administrative handling of all legal issues. And last but not least, Induss is fully responsible for handling all parties’ issues with maximum transparency.
The true beauty of this project is that any company in the immediate vicinity will be able to benefit from Induss III too. Local companies will enjoy benefits of scale and an exceptionally secure water supply. In fact, waste-disposal company Ivago has already started implementing a tailor-made solution.
3. The Benefits
This form of collective outsourcing of water production and management has many advantages. It allows us to provide a construction project that is ultimately smaller and more efficient than the sum of all the individual existing installations in the area. At the same time, it enables our customers to gain high supply security and quality.
Some of the main benefits that Induss III offers Solutia and other local companies include:
- A full outsourcing contract, enabling them to concentrate their resources and efforts on their core business, or on expansion;
- The ability to maximise the use of Induss III in terms of economical and ecological advantages for the end customer;
- Greater partnership and close communication, ensuring that minimal time and manpower will be spent on developing utility expansion (a non-core activity for many companies);
- The opportunity to fully utilise freed-up space on-site for production.
"The collaboration with Induss enables us to reduce our carbon footprint. Transparency in our partnership is also the key for better cost control of water and steam."
