This is GEA
GEA is an industrial concern with some 18,000 employees worldwide. Its headquarters are in Düsseldorf; in the Netherlands, GEA has several branches, including in Den Bosch, which is the main location of the Dutch Refrigeration division. In the field of Refrigeration, or cooling, GEA specializes in large-scale refrigeration plants.
On behalf of GEA, Faes designed and developed a compact demo case. GEA is an expert in cooling systems for industrial and commercial applications; for the food and beverage industry, dairy processing, the oil and gas industry and shipping, among others. For a demo model of the GEA Omni™ control panel, they were looking for a demo case, which Faes developed together with GEA.
Wilco Kanters, Manager E ＆ S Engineering at GEA, talks about this collaboration:
Wilco, can you tell us what exactly GEA does?
“GEA is an industrial concern with some 18,000 employees worldwide. Its headquarters are in Düsseldorf; in the Netherlands we have several branches, including in Den Bosch, which is the main location of the Dutch Refrigeration division. In the field of Refrigeration, or cooling, we specialize in large-scale refrigeration installations. The size and level of cooling of these installations varies greatly. For example, the cooling units we supply to distribution centers are many times larger than those in supermarkets. But the refrigeration units we supply to the fishing industry, in turn, have a refrigeration capacity as much as 3 to 4 times that of distribution centers. This is because freshly caught fish must be frozen as quickly as possible.”
What is GEA Omni™?
“GEA Omni™ is an industrial controller that allows optimal control and management of a compressor or a complete installation. Think, for example, of starting and stopping at the right time, or keeping the temperature constant.
This type of controller is very complete and includes a large number of standard options that often have to be purchased separately from other suppliers.”
How did you get in touch with Faes?
“To familiarize customers with the GEA Omni™, we use some models for customer visits, trade shows and training sessions. To transport these demo models, we previously worked with industrial demo cases from the United States. These were very suitable for transport by plane, but for transport by car we were looking for a more manageable solution that also had to look nice. In our search, we came to Faes.”
What was the result?
“After making an initial appointment, we quickly sat down together. I shared my ideas and Faes started working with them. After a first version, and some more adjustments, a second, final version finally emerged. This met our needs exactly. We now have a demo case with which we can use the Omni ‘plug-and-play’ for training purposes and demos.”
How do you feel the collaboration with Faes went during this project?
“All in all, I am very pleased with the way Faes thought along with us. They came up with insights and suggestions I hadn’t thought of myself. As far as I’m concerned, we will continue to work together when it comes to demo cases,” Wilco concludes.