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 The biofuels industry is experiencing cyclical economic conditions that have been rewarding at times and challenging at others due to market fluctuations. Today the industry is faced with limited product demands, recovery from a peak season of corn commodity pricing and an oversupply of installed capacity to meet current fuel ethanol demand. Although these recent conditions have challenged biofuel producers, the industry had benefited from several years of peak profitability and continues to benefit from modern, well-designed, highly-efficient, integrated processing equipment.
Manufacturers continually strive to remain competitive by implementing best practices to reduce costs and optimize operations with existing assets. The foundation of biofuel production is based on traditional agricultural and green legacies. Therefore, environmental stewardship as a responsible producer within farming communities, while focusing on sustainability, continues to be an operational imperative. The key to maintaining a competitive edge is to constantly look for operational improvements, execute projects rapidly with limited operational disruptions and achieve sustained value.
| Enhance Profitability |
Reduce Costs |
- Increase grain yields 2-5% (gal/bu)
- Increase plant capacity 7-12% (MMGPY)
- Optimize plant targets based on changing economics
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- Reduce energy costs 3-6% (MMBTU/gal)
- Reduce grain costs per unit of production 2-5%
- Increase distillers grain yields 1-2%
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| Improve Product Quality |
Environmental Compliance |
- Reduce ethanol quality variability 35-65%
- Reduce distillers grain quality variability 35-65%
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- Reduce environmental compliance costs at industry standard staffing levels
- Achieve daily regulatory compliance goals
- Reduce continuous emissions monitoring compliance costs up to 50%
- Minimize reporting data entry burden and total cost up to 50%
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The Operations & Manufacturing Intelligence applications help manufacturers improve their financial performance of production operations, increase operational flexibility to meet changing market demands, and identify opportunities for improved decisions more quickly and accurately.
The Real-time Compliance & Sustainability applications help organizations comply with sustainability initiatives by reducing environmental and product compliance risks and associated costs. Additionally, these applications assist in improving energy, raw material or human resources efficiencies and reduce waste.
The Model Predictive Control & Optimization applications help improves product quality, reduces raw material consumption and costs, increases first-pass yields, and economically optimizes the production rate.
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