Corning Incorporated – Donna Sanders – 2016

Goals 

Corning enlisted EDF Climate Corps Fellow Donna Sanders to conduct Risk Assessments aimed at protecting the newly installed Process Equipment for fiber making. The company wanted a thorough analysis of crucial equipment damage in the event of power outages, alternative sources of power—including renewables—and configuration of the emergency bus system. Donna was also tasked with creating an options list and solution set, while providing leadership to Bass Connection Teams from Duke University.  

Solutions

After interviewing numerous employees, Donna identified key areas of improvement for each manufacturing plant. She then wrote an RFP for an Energy Study to:

1.)    Improve the reliability from the utility side

2.)    Suggest alternate primary power sources including environmentally friendly alternatives

3.)    Install additional diesel generators using the current and future loads 

4.)    Optimize UPS systems

5.)    Optimize federal and local incentives/rebate programs

She also spoke with vendors and assisted the contracting, end users and division engineers on choosing the preferred vendor.

Donna shifted her work focus to Corning’s intranet site, where she built a cross-functional, geographically diverse team of statistical modeling subject matter experts that uses Monte Carlo simulations to compute and track power outage scenarios. A supplementary company-wide model can also be developed to score and rank risk profiles for each of the 70 manufacturing plants globally. With Duke University’s Bass Connection Program’s plans to continue this work, she developed a transition training program that included three webinars and an in-person, 4-hour team seminar.

Potential Impact

On aggregate, the recommended power outage-related equipment risk opportunities have the potential to help Corning save large amounts of money for each power outage lasting from a few seconds to a few minutes. For outages lasting longer than a few minutes, the savings could be substantially more monetarily and customer goodwill is also a major concern.