This I would love to hear, in fact I'll buy the beers. I'd love nothing more than to participate in this discussion. So, just name the place Win.
Snowmaking is a mixture of art and science. Since the "art" part is a bit more difficult to control, the "science" part becomes the obvious lever to adjust to ensure that the highest quality product is produced in the most efficient and cost effect way--the standard "issue" for all manufacturing facilities. Problem is, most ski areas don't have an engineering group on staff to optimize the snowmaking system like a typical large scale manufacturer does--but a ski area "makes" 1000s of metric tons of "product" each season. By taking a hard look at your "manufacturing" practices, using real data (utilities utilization trend charts (electrical/water), T & RH trend charts, statistical sampling of base depths, etc) I think you could go a long way in making the system "spin like a top". When you get right down to it, snowmaking is "crystal" manufacturing. Problem is, you have "numerous manufacturing facilities" (each gun is in reality its own "crystalizer") opperating differently due to location, wind, and differences in real time water flow. This is why I feel there are some ways to better understand and then optimize the snowmaking system.....................
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