Platform for the food and beverage industry
Yet they are not looked after enough and cooling systems do not always get the maintenance they deserve. Yet this is the best condition for ensuring your uptime and keeping your energy costs down. Rittal therefore wants to convince the industrial sector, mainly food companies, of the importance of proper maintenance.
Anyone who dissects their production machinery and compares the cost component by component will find that cooling is only a very small part of the pie. The value may be low, but the impact of cooling is just very large. Rittal service manager Stefan De Poorter explains why: "In fact, a machine must be able to operate within its parameters. If the cooling fails, this will be much more difficult to achieve. Electrical components are simply temperature sensitive. Without cooling, the wear and tear will make itself felt much faster. The consequence? Energy consumption will increase, other components may be damaged by the higher temperatures, and in the worst case, the machine will even come to a complete stop. A downtime no one can afford today." In the IT world, where the integrity of data is guaranteed with large cooling systems, maintenance is already well established. In contrast, smaller cabinet cooling systems in industry are limping along a bit behind.
Rittal therefore wants to raise awareness among food companies that refrigeration deserves all attention. "Starting with minimum annual maintenance. This still happens too little. On the one hand because cooling has not been installed correctly from the start. After all, cooling is and remains a profession in its own right that requires certified personnel. Especially when components need to be repaired or replaced. On the other hand, because too little information is passed on to end users about correct maintenance. Wherever heat is generated, it is important to start actively monitoring them. They themselves can administer initial care by regularly inspecting the filters and replacing them when necessary. Especially in environments where there may be a lot of dust or contamination, this makes a world of difference. In addition, they should realize what they can gain by having their installations checked (at least) annually by a refrigeration specialist. Operational reliability and no energy losses are important assets," De Poorter summarizes.
So Rittal is serious about propagating the importance of maintenance in the market. Rittal has been working with reliable and certified partners for years. Since 2019, it has also been working hard to build a full team led by De Poorter to use expertise on other Rittal products as added value during preventive maintenance. "A long-term investment. The better our cooling systems remain in condition, the better the quality of our products can continue to manifest itself year after year. By having the maintenance of cooling units performed by our own people with the right expertise, they can meanwhile also subject the rest of our Rittal products to a visual check and report to customers on how to avoid problems." Precisely for this reason, Rittal is also already taking steps toward predictive maintenance with its Blue e+ and Blue e coolers. These cabinet coolers can be combined with IoT modules that can communicate diagnostic data. Further steps will be taken there in the coming months and years.
