Typical issues in energy recovery systems and the heaviest hitters one should address in manufacturing companies?

[shakabrade]

I have issues selling the idea of energy savings to my management. We have multiple plastic injection stations in our cable manufacturing plant and need to preheat and then cool the system so it seems like a no brainer that most of the heat could be reused there, but I do not want to develop the whole concept in my own free time and want the management to let me work on this on company time. I did some energy balance calculation but they fear the actual system will be much more complicated and would render machines inoperable during the upgrade.

Do you have similar issues?
What are the usual suspects in your companies where energy/money is wasted that I could use as examples to get a buy-in?

Thanks!