Global household brand manufacturing food & beverage

The customer is a well-known global brand and manufacturer of a variety of food and beverages.

The brief & solution

The site, consisting of four large manufacturing buildings, required a solution to provide spot cooling to the operator locations which are spread across each building adjacent to production lines.  

Due to the heat loads generated within the factories and limitations on the ventilation due to the sites being adjacent to a populated area, the spaces maintained a very warm temperature throughout the year. During the summer, conditions for the staff were particularly uncomfortable with temperatures regularly at +28°C, and sometimes as high as 42°C. The emphasis was on the wellbeing, health and safety of the team operating within the factory to put an end to the high temperatures having an impact. 

“I have had excellent communication with the company all through the project with regular meetings and team members regularly attending site.”

The nature of the problem allowed us to look at conditions relative to operator comfort. It became clear that each of the four buildings required a separate bespoke solution and air delivery system.

JD Cooling’s technological, practical and energy saving design has resulted in an effective solution that has reduced and maintained a much lower temperature.

Innovative Design and Energy Efficiency

There are a number of unique aspects to the new spot cooling system including:

  • Indirect evaporative cooling
  • Air-to-air plate heat recovery
  • Free cooling
  • EC fans
  • The control system for each Air Handling Units (AHU) was of bespoke build utilising touch screen PLC, specifically. tailored and programmed to operate to the optimum conditions and function at all ambient UK conditions
  • No refrigerants

The customer will now see 75-80% less energy usage over a year compared to a mechanical cooling solution.

Challenges Overcome 

  • Working within operational food manufacturing areas 
  • Management of Covid-19 segregation to ensure each building worked as a single cell 
  • Working within a very warm environment 
  • Access and coordination/planning to ensure the works did not impact production  
  • Low ceiling height in some areas 
  • Each production area was inherently unique 
  • Delivering air to specific locations via food safe systems within an established services and building structure. 

Customer Satisfaction

“I have had excellent communication with the company all through the project with regular meetings and team members regularly attending site. The sub-Contractors used by JD Cooling have all been easy to work with and observed our site rules regarding PPE, access and the PTW system. Installing the air socks and ducting within the plants during production has been a challenge on both quality and logistical fronts but has been achieved with minimal disruption and downtime to production.

Any potential issues were dealt with quickly and effectively and small scope changes were discussed, agreed and finalised prior to installation. The project has run over on timescales slightly but this was our (The Customer) fault, caused by areas not being able to be released.

The system installed across four separate plants with totally independent systems performs to the agreed limits and will certainly deliver the required effect during hot weather. The system is as the name indicates to provide spot cooling for individual operatives that have in the past had to endure temperatures in excess of 30℃. The new systems deliver chilled air at a temperature of 5℃ to 8℃ below ambient.

All in all it has been a very satisfactory partnership between our company and JD Cooling and I would not hesitate to work with them again or recommend to future customers.”

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