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Article
by Ida-Maaria Autio, Head of Engagement Area & Ergin Tuganay, Head of Data & IoT
Leveraging the impact of 1% for sustainability and growth
Let’s talk about the power of 1%. Intuitively, 1% is often underestimated. A 1% improvement in processes or energy efficiency might not seem like much at first glance. However, even a conservative examination of how small gains can make massive differences — especially in energy-intensive industries — reveals compelling benefits.
The power of 1% can demonstrate how small improvements can yield significant results across industries. For example, global data centers consume about 200 TWh annually, approximately 1% of global electricity. A 1% improvement would save 2 TWh — equal to the annual electricity use of 150,000 U.S. homes. Similarly, the global aviation industry uses around 300 billion liters of fuel annually. A 1% fuel savings would save 3 billion liters, avoiding 9.5 million metric tons of CO₂ emissions — equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.
While these figures may seem abstract, they highlight the tremendous potential of small changes when applied at scale. The impact of a 1% improvement isn’t limited to just energy consumption or fuel savings; it extends to the heart of how industries operate. This is where digital transformation comes in — the power to unlock efficiencies and drive sustainability lies in smart, data-driven solutions that bridge the gap between current operations and future possibilities.
Unlocking efficiency with smart digital solutions
With more than 40 years of experience in various industry domains, we at Nortal understand the deeply rooted challenges in large organizations — data silos, fragmented systems, and manual processes — that hinder companies from reaching their full potential. But these challenges can be solved through digital solutions that bridge the physical and digital worlds, integrate data and AI, and secure seamless workflows across diverse systems.
In terms of business impact, our clients typically see improvements in several key areas, including:
- Productivity: Free up time from manual data extraction, which can be used for value-adding work.
- Transparency: Enabling real-time monitoring and alerting operators and management to the ongoing manufacturing process.
- Collaboration: By streamlined communication and collaboration among people and departments, improved productivity and efficiency, e.g., by making information readily available from previous shifts and across down-/upstream processes.
- Equipment effectiveness: By analyzing the root causes of waste (availability, performance, quality, OEE), operations can focus continuous improvement actions on the key issues.
- Product quality: Ability to identify possible product quality issues during the ongoing manufacturing process, reducing waste, improving overall quality, and meeting delivery targets. Understanding the correlation between good quality end product and production recipe and setup.
- Worker safety: Monitoring and controlling safety aspects of the production process, such as temperature, pressure, and other critical parameters, can help reduce the risk of accidents and injuries in the mill.
- From reactive to predictive strategies: Moving from reactive and firefighting to predictive methods based on data analytics (AI/ML).
- IT standardization: Standardizing IT solutions enables running similar technology and capabilities for different machines, mills, and divisions, hence reducing TCO.
- Data culture and people empowerment: Democratizing the data empowers people to innovate and collaborate around data, drives overall data-driven culture, and increases overall job satisfaction.
Transforming data into action for sustainable growth
At Nortal, we are committed to supporting industry-shaping transformations, helping our customers leverage digital tools and data-driven insights to achieve both economic and environmental goals.
One powerful tool in our suite of services is Microsoft Fabric. This unified platform integrates data, advanced analytics, and AI to tackle complex industrial data environments. With Fabric, companies can seamlessly connect and analyze live production, maintenance, and energy data across the enterprise.
The result? Actionable insights into process efficiencies, equipment performance, and energy use. We help you leverage Fabric to uncover hidden connections, enable real-time adjustments, and optimize operations across all sites globally — transforming static data into a predictive, dynamic ecosystem. Read further how Nortal can help you in this area here.
Small improvements,
big impact
The power of 1% becomes even more apparent when paired with the right tools and strategies. By addressing inefficiencies — whether it is production lines producing poor quality resulting in rework or material waste or processes operating with suboptimal parameters consuming resources like water, air, gas, electricity, or steam more than required — businesses can unlock significant gains in productivity, energy savings, and profitability.
As your digitalization partner, we provide a comprehensive, data-driven approach to achieving transformative efficiency. This isn’t just about incremental gains; it’s about building a foundation for long-term growth, resilience, and sustainability in an increasingly complex and competitive world — 1% at a time.
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