You might say Mohawk Fine Papers sees the forest for the trees. Perhaps because it relies on a natural resource, the maker of premium paper has a 30-year history of environmental stewardship and is continually seeking ways to save energy.
In recent years, customer demand for recycled products and erratic energy costs have intensified Mohawk’s need to reduce energy consumption. The company boasts that it is the second largest user of wind power in the United States. “We do this out of business necessity,” says Mohawk Vice President of IT Paul Stamas.
Noting that IT is well-advised to “align to the business strategy,” he says, “I hitched my wagon to what the company was doing around environmentalism.” But before the company could trim its energy usage, it first had to understand its energy consumption. “We needed upgraded systems that did a better job of giving us real-time information on our energy usage throughout the [manufacturing] process.”
To get that information, Mohawk last year transitioned to a Web-based Infor enterprise asset management (EAM) system, which gave the company new insights into its energy consumption. In implementing the system, Mohawk opted for virtual servers, which accelerated the project timeline and proved to be big energy savers. Energy consciousness pervaded the project, as 30 people in six plants met weekly via video- and Web-conferencing rather than face-to-face.