Steel fabrication and construction services company AJ Engineering has introduced IoT technology to help manage its carbon footprint and improve efficiency across its operations
The engineering company secured funding and technical support from CENSIS, Scotland’s innovation centre for sensing, imaging, and IoT technologies.
The project was part of the IoT Evolve programme, which was funded by the Scottish Government and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) to support SMEs in the region with the development and application of IoT technologies.
The IoT Technology has already highlighted significant savings
A series of connected sensors enable the management team to spot exactly where energy is being used and take steps to reduce consumption in particular processes or buildings.
The technology has already highlighted significant savings that can be made by reducing the heating and lighting at parts of the plant that had not previously been identified as large consumers of power.
The IoT system provides much more granular detail about specific pieces of equipment and circuits, giving the team better insights to support decision-making and its ambition to achieve net zero.
Another benefit will be the cost savings on monthly overheads and fuel bills.
The average SME in the UK generates around 15 tonnes of CO2 annually
Graham Alexander, general manager at AJ Engineering, said: “Introducing this smart monitoring system has opened our eyes to how different parts of the business consume energy. The equipment has allowed us to have a much better appreciation of what aspects of our production and business are the largest energy consumers.
“As well as cutting our own carbon footprint, the technology will have benefits for customers across the sectors we operate in. They are increasingly asking us to supply information about our carbon footprint and the energy consumed by specific processes for their own emissions reporting. With access to accurate real-time data, we will be well-equipped to do so.”
The project consortium hopes that the success of this project will inspire other SMEs in Scotland’s manufacturing sector to consider the adoption of similar IoT technologies.
