Benchmarking Complex Facilities: Lessons from Elevate Textiles

At a glance

• Participant: Six Elevate Textiles facilities representing thread, denim, and synthetic fabric manufacturing
• Project: Aii’s Energy and Carbon Benchmark pilot v0.9 (a testing phase to assess how the tool worked in practice and gather feedback in advance of v1.0) 
• Lesson: Clear production process definitions, practical examples, and the right operational data are key to making a benchmark useful for action.

Energy and emissions performance can vary significantly across facilities, even within the same company. For Elevate, benchmarking offered a way to compare performance across different manufacturing operations and identify where further investigation may be useful. 

From framework to facility reality

The Energy and Carbon Benchmark was developed collaboratively with industry experts and informed by existing data, but v0.9 still needed to be tested against the complex realities of manufacturing. 

In practice, facility processes do not always map neatly to standard categories. Facility teams may also use different terminology, and a process can involve several steps, making it difficult to determine which Benchmark production process applies and how to use it. 

These challenges are compounded in facilities with multiple fiber types and process configurations, like Elevate Textiles.

“The most difficult thing was for the facilities to determine exactly which benchmarks applied to them based on their processes. And also to understand exactly what data was being requested,” Jimmy Summers, vice president of environment, health, and safety, and chief sustainability officer at Elevate Textiles.

Based on the pilot, Elevate Textiles identified several things that can make benchmarking easier to apply:

• Engage the right facility teams: For Elevate Textiles, this included dyehouse and finishing management; maintenance managers and engineers; and environmental, health, and safety personnel, who could provide the necessary context to connect Benchmark production processes and necessary data to the facility’s work.
• Develop a process map by fiber: Document processing steps, differences in process configurations, and steps that may be difficult to match to the Benchmark’s production processes.
• Create a utility usage map: Show where utilities are used and energy is distributed, including where energy allocation is needed because submetering is not available.
• Provide practical training and guidance: Use step-by-step examples based on realistic factory configurations, along with clear explanations of Benchmark categorizations and how they apply. Elevate Textiles found the production process explanations to be the most useful support received from Aii and Made2Flow, reinforcing the importance of this part of the rollout.

What the Benchmark made visible

For Elevate Textiles, the Benchmark prompted conversations about why some facilities had higher energy use and emissions intensity and gave facilities a reason to investigate potential improvements.

Jimmy also sees benchmarking as a way to focus attention where improvement opportunities are greatest:

“Benchmarks can help facilities reach ‘win-win-win’ scenarios in which they reduce emissions and energy intensity, reduce costs from reduced energy usage, and unlock capacity via more efficient and shorter cycle times. Facilities should not fear the benchmarks.”