Nippon Delica Service: Air Leak Energy Savings Expanded to 14 Domestic Factories

Company Overview

Nippon Delica Service Co., Ltd. is a food manufacturer producing ready-to-eat products such as onigiri (rice balls), prepared bread, side dishes, and salads for major convenience store chains. The company plays a vital role in supporting consumers' meals across Japan.

The company operates 14 manufacturing facilities nationwide, with each factory producing large volumes of food products around the clock. Food manufacturing lines use compressed air in a wide variety of processes including packaging equipment, conveying systems, and air-blow cleaning, with compressors accounting for a significant share of factory energy consumption.

In the food manufacturing industry, hygiene management is the top priority, and equipment maintenance activities are strictly implemented as part of quality control. At the same time, energy-saving initiatives have been positioned as a key management issue, requiring measures that balance energy cost reduction with environmental impact reduction.

Background of Adoption

When evaluating air leak detection equipment, Nippon Delica Service conducted demonstrations comparing multiple manufacturers' devices in actual field conditions. After comprehensively evaluating each device's detection sensitivity, operability, and cost performance, they ultimately adopted the LF10 model.

The primary reason the LF10 was chosen was its outstanding detection sensitivity. Compared to other manufacturers' products, it could reliably detect even finer air leaks, receiving high praise from on-site maintenance personnel. Its ability to accurately identify leak sounds even in the noisy environments typical of food factories was the decisive factor.

Prior to adoption, the company's air leak countermeasures had relied on maintenance personnel listening for leak sounds with their ears during factory patrols. This method was subject to individual differences in experience and hearing ability, and detection results could not be recorded or accumulated as quantitative data.

Management had demanded that energy-saving results be expressed in numerical terms, but this was difficult with conventional auditory inspections. Even though air leaks could be sensed intuitively, there was no data foundation for calculating specific loss amounts. To address this gap, the decision was made to adopt detection equipment capable of quantitative data acquisition.

How It Is Used

A distinctive aspect of Nippon Delica Service's approach is the operational scheme they established: centrally managing the air leak detection camera at headquarters and rotating it among factories nationwide. Rather than deploying expensive equipment individually at each factory, planned rotation enables all locations to be covered while keeping costs down.

Specifically, headquarters staff bring the camera during regular facility visits and conduct air leak surveys from a third-party perspective. Survey results are compiled into detailed reports that include photographs of leak locations, estimated loss amounts, and repair priority rankings.

Based on these reports, repair recommendations are presented to each factory. Factory maintenance teams plan and execute repair work using the reports as reference. A systematic PDCA cycle linking headquarters and factories has been established.

This operational scheme is currently being rolled out to all 14 locations. Survey data from each factory is consolidated at headquarters and used for company-wide energy-saving progress management. A system for benchmark comparisons between factories is also taking shape, enabling prioritized follow-up of locations with the greatest improvement potential.

Results

Within just one month of camera adoption, surveys were completed at three manufacturing facilities. The results identified air leak losses totaling approximately 280,000 yen annually across the three factories. These were "invisible losses" that conventional auditory inspections could not quantify, marking an important first step in data-driven energy-saving activities.

Extrapolating these initial survey results to all 14 factories, total company-wide air leak losses are estimated to exceed 1 million yen annually. These losses represent cost savings potential that can be reliably recovered through appropriate repairs.

One particularly notable success story involved the discovery of a compressed air dryer leak at one factory. Initially, dryer replacement was being considered at an estimated cost of approximately 800,000 yen. However, by precisely identifying the leak location with the detection camera, it was found that a partial repair using UV-curing sealant (LeakAid) could address the issue. The repair cost was only about 80,000 yen — a 90% cost reduction.

This case demonstrates that accurate visualization of air leaks leads not only to energy savings but also to significant optimization of equipment maintenance costs. Knowing not just "that something is leaking" but "where and how much it is leaking" enables selection of the optimal repair method.

Environmental Goals

Nippon Delica Service has clearly defined corporate environmental goals. For CO2 emission reduction, the basic target is achieving a year-over-year reduction of 2% continuously. Through accumulation of these annual targets, the company has set a medium-term goal of achieving a 30% reduction from 2018 levels by 2030.

The ultimate long-term target is achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. As a food manufacturer, the company is pursuing company-wide initiatives to fulfill its responsibility toward a sustainable society.

A major challenge in the company's environmental activities is the energy consumption of refrigeration and cold storage equipment. Due to the nature of food manufacturing, strict temperature management is required from raw material storage through product shipment, with refrigeration-related energy consumption accounting for approximately 50% of total factory usage.

Energy savings for refrigeration and cold storage equipment are technically challenging and require balancing with quality control, making them an ongoing challenge. In contrast, compressed air leak countermeasures can reliably reduce energy losses without affecting quality, positioning them as a highly effective quick-win initiative for achieving environmental goals.

Energy savings from air leak countermeasures directly contribute to CO2 emission reductions. Reducing compressor operating time means less electricity consumption, which directly translates to lower CO2 emissions. Nippon Delica Service plans to continue expanding air leak countermeasures company-wide as a pillar of environmental management.