Keep it clean Dürr Ecoclean

KEEP IT CLEAN

Cleaning and filtration systems provider Dürr Ecoclean is proud to be ‘your partner in production efficiency’. Emma-Jane Batey spoke to global sales and marketing director Uwe Schubert to find out how this is being achieved.

The Dürr Group is the world’s market leader in paint shops, balancing and cleaning technology, primarily for the automotive sector but also for aviation and other industries. Headquartered in Stuttgart, the Dürr Group has subsidiaries in 21 countries, including France, Austria, Spain, China and the USA, with 48 sales service centre locations and 30 production facilities. Founded in 1895 and family owned until 1989 when it became incorporated, the group has been listed on the German stock exchange since 2011. With around 50–60 per cent of all automotive paint shops and automotive assembly lines worldwide equipped with Dürr technology, it is clear that the group has a substantial global reach.

Dürr Ecoclean is a wholly owned daughter company of the Dürr Group and is dedicated to cleaning and filtration systems and integrated industrial cleaning services. Mr Schubert explained how the company fits into the group and benefits from its expansive footprint: “As we specialise in manufacturing cleaning devices and providing cleaning technology systems for large-scale operations, particularly those found in the automotive industry, our close cooperation with our mother company gives us unrivalled access to global paint shops and other automotive facilities. The Dürr Group achieved revenue and sales of close to €2 billion in 2011 and employs around 7000 people across our global locations. Dürr Ecoclean contributed more than €250 million to that figure and we employ around 1000 people, with about one third of those people at our fast-expanding facility in China.”

Global footprint

Dürr Ecoclean’s global footprint is a major commercial advantage. The company is focused on continuing its expansion in emerging markets as well as cementing its presence in Europe and America, where its service centre is located in the famous automotive heartland of Detroit. Mr Schubert said, “We are growing quickly and heavily, particularly in India and Brazil. We have well-established manufacturing facilities and sales service centres in Mexico and China too, and it is in China that we expect to

see double or even triple capacity in the coming years thanks to extensive investment and the utilisation of the opportunities across the region.”

Another region that is already the recipient of Dürr Ecoclean’s investment is Russia. Here the company predicts a strong demand for its products and services. Mr Schubert continued, “We’re really focused on emerging markets, with the BRIC countries a strong strategic direction for us. We are finding that as emerging markets are more aware of the regulations surrounding cleaning and solvents, Dürr Ecoclean is well-positioned to make it possible to meet increasingly strict rules for production.”

Dürr Ecoclean’s product portfolio is cleverly developed to ensure that all the tightest global legislation for cleaning in production are met. Its full service provision of solutions in terms of technical offerings means that it can deliver all the cleaning the customer requires. Its technological solutions are state-of-the-art, with its development team on hand to guarantee that all automated processes are cleaned effectively and efficiently. The company provides dedicated solvents for a wide variety of applications beyond its automotive and aerospace mainstays. It offers water-based, alcohol-based, modified alcohol-based and chlorinated hydrocarbon-based cleaners.

Expertise and excellence

Mr Schubert explained how Dürr Ecoclean’s wide range of cleaning solutions is supported by its understanding of the demands of the cleaning process. He said, “We know the types of challenging environments where our products are used so we have developed them to perform exceptionally well in those conditions. We can provide closed systems that allow customers to fully control the solvent and support the ecological aspect of their operation, keeping the working environment safe as well as meeting their own ecological standards in-house. Dürr Ecoclean makes it possible for customers to use their hazardous solvents in a controlled way.”

Part of this understanding of controlling solvents is visible in Dürr Ecoclean’s ‘ecoefficiency’ promise. The company has developed a market-leading technology that addresses the overall cost of ownership of the solvent, taking into consideration the ecological impact of the product in all its forms and stages. This also values the ‘closed loop system’ that many of Dürr Ecoclean’s customers appreciate, which controls consumption of solvents yet maintains cleaning efficacy.

As a dominant player in the industrial cleaning systems and solutions industry, Dürr Ecoclean predicts a continually bright future. With its lack of reliance on any one industry sector it has been able to perform well throughout the global recession and expects that this will continue. Mr Schubert concluded, “We are well-placed for aggressive growth. We have a wide application for our products and services, a broad global footprint of manufacturing and sales service centres and a strong plan for growth in emerging countries. Even though there has been some saturation in Europe, we foresee good performance in our established markets alongside exceptional growth in regions where our most established sectors – the automotive and aerospace industries particularly – are seeing excellent opportunities. We are also seeing new opportunities in sectors such as medical and optical worldwide. We follow our customers wherever they go in the world and offer a broad scope of industrial cleaning solutions.” n