CANNON SUCCESS IN CONTINUOUS AND DISCONTINUOUS PANELS PRODUCTION PLANT: RUSSIA AND CSI, WHERE ENERGY COUNTS

It 's a well-known fact: Russian industries consume on
average significantly more energy per unit of production as
compared to their Western equals.
A high degree of 'energy intensity' can pose a threat to
growth prospects of Russian companies, especially when
energy prices – which have historically been well below the
world prices and which are now set to become liberalized
by 2011 in Russia – are rapidly rising. Timely investments in
energy efficiency will prevent energy costs from eroding
companies' profit margins and will help companies
maintain their competitive edge.

Energy efficiency investments are also becoming increasingly
profitable as energy prices continue to rise. High energy
consumption and inefficiency may become a bottleneck for
future capacity and production growth, as industries are faced
with high charges for new connections to the power distribution
system and strict limits on energy consumption. Investments into
efficient equipment and processes often bring along positive
“side effects,” improved product quality and productivity, not
forgetting a higher appeal towards foreign investors looking for
efficient Russian partners to do business with.
Most of the inefficiencies so common throughout the Russian
industry were inherited from the Soviet times, when energy was
cheap and constructions were designed with little consideration
towards a rational use of energy. These inefficient buildings are
still in use: at least one third of them are more than 20-25 years
old. This explains why most Russian companies are far below
international benchmarks for energy consumption levels. Highenergy
intensity and inefficiency reverberates negatively through
the whole Russian economy.
These very good arguments lead many industry managers to look
for more energy efficiency, new equipment, less waste of
precious heath – even in a gas-rich country that could treat this
as a secondary source of concern. This efficiency translates into
a rising demand for insulated buildings, which finds in a few
centimetres of Polyurethane rigid foam the best answer to their
needs. Energy-efficient more than any other competing media,
easy to apply and shape, long lasting and characterised by good
structural properties, a Polyurethane-insulated sandwich panel for
construction or for refrigerator applications is a best seller in
today's Russia.
Cannon Eurasia – the Russian Cannon Company based in
Moscow which follows all the business lines of the Group –
have supplied in the past two-three years a significant number of
complete plants to fulfil this requirement. Thermal insulation has
become the most important area of business, surpassing the
traditional applications in Automotive and Domestic
Refrigerators – which suffer here as it does everywhere else in
the world – in their sales statistics.
Discontinuous foaming for custom-designed trucks
Several discontinuous panel plants have been supplied to Russian,
Ukrainian Kirghizian and Siberian companies, for buildings and
for refrigerated cells: demand is high especially to ensure the
“cold chain” to the transportation and storage of foodstuff, a
precaution which is taking place more and more in these wide
countries.
Insulated trucks – long up to 16 m – are made with
Polyurethane-insulated panels faced with metal/metal and
metal/glassfiber linings. These CSI-based companies equip their
factories with polymerisation presses able to produce several
models in the same cavity. Panels for the sides, top and bottom
of the trailer are made in sequence in medium-small lots and
stored until the assembly operation requires them. By doing so
these manufacturers can save factory space and capital
investment, still being able to follow the demand of their clients.
A high degree of personalisation is therefore possible, with
increasing satisfaction of their customers. Automatisation around
these presses can be quite sophisticated, with multiple mixing
heads for open and closed mould pouring – connected to one
or two high-output metering machine – The mixing heads for
open mould pouring are fitted onto head holders and the
contemporary injection of two heads assure a very good
distribution of the foam thanks to the pouring pipe distributor
between the two heads. The mixing heads for closed mould
injection are mounted onto overhead rails to reach a number of
injection holes properly positioned in the whole length of each
panel. Profiling machines for the metal facings and equipment
for unwinding and cutting of reinforced fiber glass facing are an
integral part of the Cannon supply.
Built by Cannon Afros (the metering and mixing equipment) and
Manni (the polymerisation presses and all handling devices) these
plants have been installed under the supervision of the technical
staff of Cannon Eurasia, which covers an area spanning over 8
time zones with a guarantee of service intervention in 8-24
hours according with the location of their client.
Continuous production for a panel-hungry building
industry
Repeating orders from Lissant, the St. Petersburg-based
manufacturers of insulated panels for building walls and roofs:
they have confirmed their trust in Cannon by ordering a second
continuous foaming plant equipped with the whole set of tools
for metal profiling, panel cutting, stacking and packing.
The plant – delivered in the first quarter of 2008 – is in full
production and allows Lissant to face the rising demand for
these energy-efficient elements, much demanded by the Russian
and neighbouring market. Cannon have provided reasonable
solutions to all the customer's requirements, confirming their
advantages over other bidders – not due to the lowest price, as
the prices submitted by other bidders were lower, but with regard
to such selection criteria as structural, engineering and
performance characteristics, operation and maintenance warranty.
Cold storage at home, in shops and restaurants
Repeating and new orders came to Cannon Eurasia during 2008
from the leading and the emerging manufacturers of refrigerators
in the CSI. The replacement of ancient blowing agents with
hydrocarbons – mostly Pentanes – brings new technical
requirements that can be easily solved when the supplier has
grown worldwide experience in the field, with hundreds of new
and retrofitted plants in operation. This is the reason that
convinced Interteknika of Donelsk, Ukraina and Frigorex of
Orel, Russia, to select Cannon as their supplier for their new
foaming plants for commercial refrigerators. Also the Finnish
manufacturer Helkama made the same decision for the new
equipment of their new factory near St. Petersburg, recently.
Extension of an existing foaming plant took place in 2008 at
Pozis in Zelenodolsk, at Sepo in Saratov, both in the European
part of Russia and Ormez in Orsk in Russia near the border of
Kazakhistan.
The latest versions of Cannon FPL mixing heads – specifically
designed for refrigerator applications – proved to be the solution
for these applications where, now more than in the past, great
importance is assigned to optimum filling of the cabinet at the
theoretical set foam density, without wasting material to
“overpack” the cavity with an excess of formulation.
Another example of savings, this time in favour of the fridge
manufacturer, that helps in containing the cost of these
appliances and keeps Energy-saving investments at the right level
for the end user.
Cannon Eurasia welcomes the inquiries of other Russian
and CSI-based innovative companies that have understood
that investing in energy efficiency will prevent energy costs
from eroding profit margins and will help them maintain
their competitive edge. (www.cannon.ru).