The IT cooling specialists Stulz

THE IT COOLING SPECIALISTS

The air conditioning systems made by the German company Stulz are used throughout the world in data centres, mobile phone stations and factories to keep sensitive data and industrial machines cool. Victoria Hattersley talks to Kurt Ploetner, the company’s global sales and marketing director, to find out how it maintains its strong global position.

Stulz, established in 1947, has been involved in the business of air conditioning and cooling systems since 1965. Since then, aside from its main production facilities in Germany, the company has expanded on a global scale with the setting up of production sites in the USA, Italy, India and China. These facilities have various production programmes but they share one thing in common: a focus on cooling systems for IT and telecommunications systems.

Mr Ploetner explains this focus on the IT and telecoms industries: “Our core products are mainly for the IT industry. We have seen that the IT markets are the most rapidly growing so we are working to keep up with demand – to which end we are currently expanding our production facilities in China, India and Italy.

“The IT and telecoms market changes very rapidly and with all these new drivers such as ipads and iphones the amount of new data which is being sent, received and stored by fibreoptics is growing very quickly, meaning that the demand for new data centres is also increasing. Whatever we do on an iPad or iPhone has to be sent over a telecommunication line and all that data requires a data centre – all of which require cooling. In fact, in data centres the cooling systems are the biggest power user apart from the data processing itself.”

Cooling and air conditioning

The company’s systems for air conditioning in the IT sector vary in size from its CyberAir 2 for large computer and equipment rooms down to its MiniSpace compact system for cooling small server rooms. For the telecoms sector, its products include the SplitAir range for base stations, and the Tel-Air 2 line for internal mounting at base stations.

But whilst Stulz’s products are mainly targeted towards IT and telecoms, it also manufactures cooling and air conditioning systems for a number of other end uses. For example, it provides systems for production machinery in various industries, such as tool-making or laser machines which need cooling to precise temperatures.

In terms of new products, the company is currently launching an updated version 3 of its CyberAir precision air–conditioning system that is able to reduce power consumption by 10–15 per cent compared to the previous version of the series – saving costs for the customer as well as reducing CO2 emissions. As Mr Ploetner says, “Our product development focus for the future will be on reducing the total cost of ownership are we are also looking at new refrigerants which are less environmentally damaging.”

Stulz’s products can be customised to meet clients’ needs if this is commercially viable. “The service we offer is important because sometimes our customers need their plants to be running 99.999 per cent of the time – which means the machine should not stop any longer than 53 minutes per year. We have specific solutions which we make for certain larger customers, be they telecoms companies such as Orange and Vodafone, or commercial customers.”

Global ambitions

Whilst Stulz’s actual production activities are confined to the five countries mentioned above, it has a presence in around 115 countries today with its own sales and service companies or indirectly with what Mr Ploetner refers to as ‘sales and service partners’.

The company intends to maintain and indeed increase this global coverage, as Mr Ploetner tells us: “Basically we have the world pretty well covered with the exception of Africa, but we are looking to move into this market very soon. We won’t actually be manufacturing here, but we will be establishing service and sales points because in Africa, as is the case with most areas today, communication is increasing which means data centres have to be built and companies such as ours need to create the infrastructure to cool the equipment.”

And it seems that Stulz will be able to continue with its global expansion plans relatively unhindered. According to Mr Ploetner his company is the second largest producer of precision air conditioning units in the world with only one other player, the Emerson Group, holding a larger market share. Moving forward

In June 2011, Stulz GmbH, Hamburg acquired the Comfort and Precision Air Conditioning and Service divisions of Servo King in Austria in order to extend its market leadership and increase its presence in this market.

Aside from this, however, the company’s growth over the next year or two is expected to be of a more organic nature, with the continued expansion of its existing production facilities and development of its product range. Mr Ploetner concludes, “If an acquisition comes along that makes sense we would take it, but it would have to be a company with complementary activities and at the moment we have no plans for any such thing. We are, however, working on a new kind of product, but I cannot talk about this in any detail as it is still in development. What I can say is that it will give a new direction to cooling.” n