How to Calculate ROI (Return on Investment)

You may have asked…why should I switch over to an engineered compressed air product if my system already works? Or…How can your products be much different?

Manufacturing has always been an advocate for cost savings, where they even have job positions solely focused on cost savings. Return on Investment (ROI) is a metric they look toward to help make good decisions for cost savings.  The term is used to determine the financial benefits associated with the use of more efficient products or processes compared to what you are currently using. This is like looking at your homes heating costs and then changing out to energy efficient windows and better insulation. The upfront cost might be high but the amount of money you will save over time is worth it.

ROI Calculation

How is ROI calculated? It is very simple to calculate out the potential savings of using an EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Product. We have easy to use calculators on our websites Resources where filling in a few blanks will result in an ROI when switching to a EXAIR product! Here they Are, Calculators.

I’ll go ahead and break down the simple ROI calculations for replacing open blow offs with an EXAIR Super Air Nozzle:

  • ¼” Copper Pipe consumes 33 SCFM at 80 psig (denoted below as CP)
  • A Model 1100 ¼” Super Air Nozzle can be used to replace and only uses 14 SCFM at 80 psig (denoted below as EP)

Calculation:

(CP air consumption) * (60 min/hr) * (8 hr/day) * (5 days/week) * (52 weeks/year) = SCF used per year for Copper Pipe  

(33) * (60) * (8) * (5) * (52) = 4,118,400 SCF

(EP air consumption) * (60 min/hr) * (8 hr/day) * (5 days/week) * (52 weeks/year) = SCF used per year for EXAIR Product  

               (14) * (60) * (8) * (5) * (52) = 1,747,200 SCF

Air Savings:

SCF used per year for Copper Pipe – SCF used per year for EXAIR Product = SCF Savings

               4,118,400 SCF – 1,747,200 SCF = 2,371,200 SCF in savings

If you know the facilities cost to generate 1,000 SCF of compressed air you can calculate out how much this will save. If not, you can use $0.25 to generate 1,000 SCF which is the value used by the U.S. Department of Energy to estimate costs.

Yearly Savings:

                (SCF Saved) * (Cost / 1000 SCF) = Yearly Savings

                                (2,371,200 SCF) * ($0.25 / 1000 SCF) = $592.80 annual Savings

With the simple investment of $42 (as of date published) you can calculate out the time it will take to pay off the unit.

Time Until payoff:

                (Yearly Savings) / (5 days/week * 52 weeks/year) = Daily Savings

                                ($592.80/year) / (5 days/week * 52 weeks/year) = $2.28 per day

                (Cost of EXAIR Unit) / (Daily Savings) = Days until product has been paid off

                                ($42) / ($2.28/day) = 17.9 days  

As you can see it doesn’t have to take long for the nozzle to pay for itself, and then continue to contribute toward your bottom line. 

If you have any questions about compressed air systems or want more information on any of EXAIR’s products, give us a call, we have a team of Application Engineers ready to answer your questions and recommend a solution for your applications.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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Hand Holding money Image from Pictures of Money Creative Commons license

Happy New Year!

Thank you all for choosing EXAIR as your compressed air products partner in 2021. We look forward to solving the challenges you present to our team in 2022! Enjoy any festivities and time off you may have planned.

EXAIR will be closed December 30 and 31, 2021. We will return to normal business hours on January 3, 2022.

Sincerely,
The EXAIR Team

Image courtesy of Alexandra Koch, Pixaby license

How-To Size Receiver Tanks and Why Use Them in Your Compressed Air System

Receiver Tank

My colleague, Lee Evans, wrote a blog about calculating the size of primary receiver tanks within a compressed air system.  (You can read it here: Receiver Tank Principle and Calculations).  I would like to expand a bit more about secondary receiver tanks.  They can be strategically placed throughout the plant to improve the operation of your compressed air system.  The primary receiver tanks help to protect the supply side when demands are high, and the secondary receiver tanks help pneumatic systems on the demand side for optimum performance.

Circuit Board

I like to compare the pneumatic system to an electrical system.  The receiver tanks are like capacitors.  They store energy produced by an air compressor like a capacitor stores energy from an electrical source.  If you have ever seen an electrical circuit board, you notice many capacitors with different sizes throughout the circuit board (reference photo above).  The reason for this is to have a ready source of energy to increase efficiency and speeds with the ebbs and flows of electrical signals.  The same can be said for a pneumatic system with secondary receiver tanks.

To tie this into the compressed air system, if you have an area that requires a high volume of compressed air intermittently, a secondary receiver tank would benefit this type of pneumatic setup.  With valves, cylinders, actuators, and pneumatic controls which turn on and off, it is important to have a ready source of stored “energy” nearby.

For calculating a minimum volume size for your secondary receiver tank, we can use Equation 1 below.  It is the same for sizing a primary receiver tank, but the scalars are slightly different.  The supply line to this tank will typically come from a header pipe that supplies the entire facility.  Generally, it is smaller in diameter; so, we have to look at the air supply that it can feed into the tank.  For example, a 1” NPT Schedule 40 Pipe at 100 PSIG can supply a maximum of 150 SCFM of air flow.  This value is used for Cap below.  C is the largest air demand for the machine or targeted area that will be using the tank.  If the C value is less than the Cap value, then a secondary tank is not needed.  If the Cap is below the C value, then we can calculate the smallest tank volume that would be needed.  The other value in the equation is the minimum tank pressure.  In most cases, a regulator is used to set the air pressure for the machine or area.  If the specification is 80 PSIG, then you would use this value as P2P1 is the header pressure that will be coming into the secondary tank.  With this collection of information, you can use Equation 1 to calculate the minimum tank volume.  So, any receiver tank with a larger volume would work as a secondary receiver tank.

Equation 1:

V = T * (C – Cap) * (Pa) / (P1-P2)

Where:

V – Volume of receiver tank (cubic feet)

T – Time interval (minutes)

C – Air demand for system (cubic feet per minute)

Cap – Supply value of inlet pipe (cubic feet per minute)

Pa – Absolute atmospheric pressure (PSIA)

P1 – Header Pressure (PSIG)

P2 – Regulated Pressure (PSIG)

If you find that your pneumatic devices are lacking in performance because the air pressure seems to drop during operation, you may need to add a secondary receiver to that system.  EXAIR stocks 60 Gallon tanks, model 9500-60, to add to those specific areas.  If you have any questions about using a receiver tank in your application, primary or secondary, you can contact an EXAIR Application Engineer.  We can restore your efficiency and speed back into your applications.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Photo: Circuit Board courtesy from T_Tide under Pixabay License

Video Blog: How-to Install EXAIR’s Hot Tap Digital Flowmeters

The Hot Tap Digital Flowmeters can be installed on pressurized compressed air systems and pipes. This avoids the downtime necessary to depressurize the compressed air system and keeps your processes up and running.

Watch the video below to learn how simple it is to install EXAIR’s Hot Tap Digital Flowmeters.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

Send me an Email
Find us on the Web 
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Twitter: @EXAIR_JS