Key Steps to Complying with ESOS

Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme has already been launched. In fact, it is by now in its initial phase. However, many businesses are still not aware of the new scheme, especially those who are covered by the qualifications for ESOS. To help them understand what they need to do in compliance to the energy efficiency strategy, here are key steps they can follow along the way.

Measure Overall Energy Consumption

The first step to complying with ESOS is to make an initial estimate of the business? energy consumption. This includes measuring the use of electricity, renewable energy, combustible fuels and all other forms of energy consumed whether in buildings, transports and industrial processes.

Three important factors to consider are the measurement units used, the reference period and quality of data. Energy units, such as MWh and GJ, or energy expenditure costs should be applied. Business enterprises should also do the initial measurement within a reference period of 12 months. Moreover, data collected should be verifiable at hand.

Identify Areas of Significant Energy Consumption

When the total energy consumption for all the activities and assets has already been estimated, it’s then time to identify what areas in the organisation comprise the significant portion of the overall energy usage. The areas recognised should cover at least 90% of the overall consumption. Meaning to say, ESOS participants have the chance to omit 10% of the energy consumption and instead focus on the 90%. This would ensure that subsequent energy audits will be cost-effective and proportionate.

Consider and Choose Compliance Routes

In order to comply with ESOS, qualified businesses should consider what compliance routes to take. These routes include taking series of energy audits, operating and implementing a certified ISO 50001 energy management system, acquiring Display Energy Certificates (DECs) and working with Green Deal assessments. Whichever route the business takes, one should maintain credible evidences, along with helpful documents, to certify their compliance.

Report the Compliance

Except when the large enterprise covers all the significant areas of energy consumption by means of ISO 50001 certification, one should appoint a lead assessor to supervise, conduct and review the organisation’s chosen ESOS compliance route. In this case, the approved assessments should then be signed off at board level to ensure that the conclusions and recommendations for energy savings are properly carried. To confirm their compliance, the business should submit a formal notification to the Environment Agency.

Because ESOS is not just an opportunity but also an obligation, it designated compliance bodies and gave them the authority to file civil penalties towards those who fail to comply with the scheme. Not only that, these appropriate authorities have the right to publish information about non-compliant enterprises including their name, details of non-compliance and corresponding penalty amount. Among these UK compliance bodies are Natural Resources Wales, Environment Agency in England, The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and Northern Ireland Environment Agency.

So, if you are covered with the ESOS qualifications, make sure to be informed. As the famous saying goes, ?Ignorance of the law excuses no one.? Likewise, awareness of ESOS is a responsibility every large business in UK should give importance to.

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Using Pull Systems to Optimise Work Flows in Call Centres

When call centres emerged towards the end of the 20th century, they deserved their name ?the sweatshops of the nineties?. A new brand of low-paid workers crammed into tiny cubicles to interact with consumers who were still trying to understand the system. Supervisors followed ?scientific management? principles aimed at maximising call-agent activity. When there was sudden surge in incoming calls, systems and customer care fell over.

The flow is nowadays in the opposite direction. Systems borrowed from manufacturing like Kanban, Pull, and Levelling are in place enabling a more customer-oriented approach. In this short article, our focus is on Pull Systems. We discuss what are they, and how they can make modern call centres even better for both sets of stakeholders.

Pull Systems from a Manufacturing Perspective

Manufacturing has traditionally been push-based. Sums are done, demand predicted, raw materials ordered and the machines turned on. Manufacturers send out representatives to obtain orders and push out stock. If the sums turn out wrong inventories rise, and stock holding costs increase. The consumer is on the receiving end again and the accountant is irritable all day long.

Just-in-time thinking has evolved a pull-based approach to manufacturing. This limits inventories to anticipated demand in the time it takes to manufacture more, plus a cushion as a trigger. When the cushion is gone, demand-pull spurs the factory into action. This approach brings us closer to only making what we can sell. The consumer benefits from a lower price and the accountant smiles again.

Are Pull Systems Possible in Dual Call Centres

There are many comments in the public domain regarding the practicality of using lean pull systems to regulate call centre workflow. Critics point to the practical impossibility of limiting the number of incoming callers. They believe a call centre must answer all inbound calls within a target period, or lose its clients to the competition.

In this world-view customers are often the losers. At peak times, operators can seem keen to shrug them off with canned answers. When things are quiet, they languidly explain things to keep their occupancy levels high. But this is not the end of the discussion, because modern call centres do more than just take inbound calls.

Using the Pull System Approach in Dual Call Centres

Most call centre support-desks originally focused are handling technical queries on behalf of a number of clients. When these clients? customers called in, their staff used operator?s guides to help them answer specific queries. Financial models?determined staffing levels and the number of ?man-hours? available daily. Using a manufacturing analogy, they used a push-approach to decide the amount of effort they were going to put out, and that is where they planted their standard.

Since these early 1990 days, advanced telephony on the internet has empowered call centres to provide additional remote services in any country with these networks. They have added sales and marketing to their business models, and increased their revenue through commissions. They have control over activity levels in this part of their business. They have the power to decide how many calls they are going to make, and within reason when they are going to make them.

This dichotomy of being passive regarding incoming traffic on the one hand, and having active control over outgoing calls on the other, opens up the possibility of a partly pull-based lean approach to call centre operation. In this model, a switching mechanism moves dual trained operators between call centre duties and marketing activities, as required by the volume of call centre traffic, thus making a pull system viable in dual call centres.

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Measure it to manage it with smart meters

Measure it to manage it. This saying applies perfectly to energy management. Effectively managing energy use is virtually impossible with unreliable measurement devices in place or worse still, no measurements at all. Smart meters are a smart way to measure energy and water usage giving you more control over the amount of energy or water usage.

Smart energy meters:
Smart meters are indeed a smart way to get insight into your energy use which brings more security and a better environment. They can also enable you to get Smart Energy Reports that are a personalised guide to energy efficiency.

Other benefits of smart meters:

? You are able to generate simple graphs and charts showing you where you use your energy and money

? Consumption of gas and electricity is broken down. This implies that one can be able to view their spending at a glance

? Smart meters track consumption on a monthly basis enabling you to compare your own consumption against other similar households

? By tracking energy consumption and spending over time, one can be able to view the history and assess the impact of their energy efficiency measures over a particular period

Smart water meters:
Smart meters are not only used for measuring energy use, they are also used to measure water usage efficiency. Water efficiency is essential for management of sustainable water resources.

Water resources have been diminishing over time posing a challenge for water users and water suppliers to seriously look for ways to manage water efficiency. The need for accurate, adequate and reliable measurement and monitoring practices of water consumption in organisations can therefore not be overlooked.

Timely collection and analysis of water use data, and relaying this data in a timely manner to the water user, can result in significant changes in water use behaviour. Other benefits include instant detection of areas where water wastage is occurring e.g. leakages hence action is taken to save water. Similar to energy data, water data collected by smart metering systems is also vital in designing water efficiency and recycling systems as well as the improvement of demand management policies and programs.

The use of smart meters to monitor water consumption enables users to analyse, and interpret the data collected. This feedback enables users to change their behaviours.

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