Alfa Laval celebrated the opening of its new Compabloc factory in Jiangyin, China on January 18. The factory will produce welded plate heat exchangers for the Asian countries (China, Korea, South East Asia, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and Middle East) in order to reduce delivery time and be closer to the customers. 
“By manufacturing Compabloc here in China, we can provide our customers across Asia with Alfa Laval Quality, made in China. We are committed to combining product quality with shorter lead times, on time delivery and higher level of service”, says Ray Field, Senior Vice President Region Asia and Oceania.
The factory is very modern and top of the line with welding, assembly and automated material handling. This project has not only been about setting up a production line, but huge work has also gone into creating a competent and qualified organization to handle orders, make special designs and calculations.
The design of the plates and the cassettes are the main core competence of this product. Those parts of the product will still be produced in France. The Chinese welders and operators have been trained at the Compabloc Business centre in France, where all the design and product development as well as the main manufacturing is done. Competences and responsibilities have been transferred from France to Jiangyin within product management and research & development to secure compliance with local and international code requirements and to enable to respond locally to customer requirements.
“We have built up the required competencies and capabilities to do the final manufacturing and assembly here in Jiangyin in accordance with customer demands and with a quality fully in line with the present quality from our main site in France. By doing this we can cut the delivery time to customers considerably”, says Christian Thomsen, Managing Director Business Centre Welded.
“We have done a rigorous work with quality systems and standards not just ensuring ASME certification and GB 150 certification but as well establishing the same quality management and assurance procedures as the ones in France”, says Magnus Hartlen. Vice President Operations China.
Compabloc, is a welded plate heat exchanger, perfect for operation in chemically aggressive environments and for handling high-temperature fluids in e.g. Oil&Gas, Refining and Petrochemicals. The Compabloc is a unique product from Alfa Laval, and has more than 30 years’ experience and 25.000 products installed worldwide.
Alfa Laval has a strong, global service network with more than 100 service centers and 500 service engineers all over the world. About half of them are in Asia and they can offer service and support at every stage of the project, from process control, installation to commissioning.There is a well-defined service offering for all welded heat exchangers worldwide. Fontanil in France is also keeping an Emergency stock for urgent needs.
Alfa Laval is celebrating 30 years in China this year and the Jiangyin manufacturing site has been operating for 20 years. The Jiangyin site is producing Heat exchangers (Gasketed, brased and welded), tank cleaning equipment and High speed separators and have over 400 employees which makes it Alfa Laval’s biggest manufacturing site in Asia.
Source: Alfa Laval
