STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. - Heatcraft Worldwide Refrigeration
unveiled its new Innovation Center during a grand opening event attended by a
cross section of customers, industry experts, trade media, and local officials.
The state-of-the-art facility highlights the company's more than 125 years of
refrigeration expertise with global innovative products, training services, and
high-tech laboratory all designed to provide added customer
value.
"The opening of the Heatcraft Innovation Center marks
an exciting time for our company as it will further strengthen our capabilities
of providing best-in-class refrigeration equipment and complete systems to our
customers," said Larry Golen, vice president and general manager,
Heatcraft North America. "In addition to being a place where our latest
global innovations can be showcased, the facility will serve as a strategic
resource for our customers in product development, testing and training."
The new development center includes a 15,000-square-foot
expansion of the existing 30,000 square-foot laboratory. The Heatcraft
Innovation Center includes an equipment and systems showroom, a training
facility, and an expanded global laboratory. The showroom displays more than 60
refrigeration solutions exemplifying the extensive breadth of Heatcraft global
innovation across a wide variety of markets including food retail, foodservice,
cold storage, and industrial cooling. The 3,500 square-foot training facility
housed within the Innovation Center contains fully operational refrigeration
systems designed to create an effective hands-on learning environment for
beginners to those with advanced technical skills. Finally, the expanded global
lab with locations in both the Stone Mountain and Columbus, Ga. operations will
allow for more robust equipment and complete systems testing using realistic
environmental conditions ensuring products are up to the highest of quality
standards and in compliance with regulatory requirements.
Upon entering the Heatcraft Innovation Center, visitors will
experience a realistic food retail environment as the showroom boasts
impressive replicas of a supermarket and restaurant kitchen exhibiting the
company's latest energy-efficient products and systems. Refrigerated display
cases are featured fully merchandised and divided into produce, bakery, frozen
foods, dairy, meat, and convenience departments. A variety of refrigeration
systems are also on display in a mechanical room setting including innovative
products like the recently launched Slim Contour Unit Cooler, the refrigeration
remote control monitoring system, the environmentally-friendly Microchannel
Air-Cooled Condenser platform, and the GreenChill-awarded CO2 refrigeration
system.