The starting point of collaboration is a personal visit, during which the production facilities and infrastructure systems are inspected. This allows a consultant to meet the contact person and familiarize themselves with the company. After this visit, they should have an overview of the plant, a list of the systems to be considered, and what data will be available for the analysis. Based on this information, they will then prepare a proposal for conducting the analysis. It should be noted that the conducting of Rough Pinch Aalyses and detailed Pinch Analyses in Switzerland is financially supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (BFE). The current funding conditions can be found on the website of energieschweiz.

Typically, the collaboration starts with a rough pinch analysis. This includes an assessment and analysis of the present state, determination of the energy-saving potential, identifying energetic weak spots, approaches to efficiency improvement, a rough conceptualization of optimization measures, and recommendations for further action.

Only in a second phase is a detailed pinch analysis usually offered. This is especially the case if the rough pinch analysis has identified significant energy-saving potential and if the determined measures requires a more in-depth analysis, e.g., for flexibility reasons, uncertain data, fouling behavior, analysis of different operating scenarios, or scenarios. A complete Pinch analysis is a follow-up project. It is not always clear from the beginning whether the execution of a detailed pinch analysis is ultimately needed. For example, certain measures may be so clearly identified through the rough pinch analysis that additional conceptual elaboration is not necessary, in which case measures can be transferred directly to the planning phase after a rough pinch analysis. In a detailed pinch analysis, the database is typically extended, including additional measurements or detailed simulations, energy modeling is refined, and measures are elaborated in more detail to provide a clear decision basis for implementation afterwards.