Milan, Italy - Cannon Group is to supply a complete foaming plant to Maersk Container Industry (MCI) for the manufacture of reefers, temperature-controlled containers used to transport frozen or refrigerated goods.
Total investment in the project is $170 million, but Cannon did not specify if this was for the factory as a whole, or for its foaming plant.
The equipment will be installed in MCI's new factory in San Antonio, Chile. This will be the first reefer manufacturing facility in some time to be located outside China and the first in Latin America, Cannon said in a 24 April news release. Cannon added that most recent global reefer manufacturing capacity has been located in China, where MCI operates a plant in Qingdao.
The new plant is scheduled to open at the beginning of 2014. MCI said the new factory will help correct the reefer trade imbalance that disadvantages exporters of fresh produce, such as fish and meat from western South America.
The core of the plant will be a polyurethane injection plant, where all the foam-insulated components of the box reefer will be manufactured. It will be able to produce reefers at a rate of one complete box assembled every nine minutes, Cannon said. The foaming equipment will cover an area of roughly 4300 m².
"The reasons for choosing Cannon for this major contract mainly linked with our experience in the field of automated production of extra-large insulated panels and with the capacity assembly team of specialists able to provide quick answers and innovative solutions for Maersk's new factory expectations," commented Marco Volpato, managing director of the Cannon Group.
He noted that Cannon will be the single interface for the whole plant, parts of which will be manufactured by several of Cannon's units: Cannon Afros for the dosing and mixing equipment, Cannon Ergos for the integration of all components, Manni for the polymerisation and material handling elements, Shinnon for ancillary parts.
