Atlas Copco compressed air solution in Tongkun Group
The Tongkun Group is located in Tongxiang City, Zhejiang Province. It is a large-scale enterprise mainly in the manufacturing of PTA, polyester and polyester fiber. Among the 5 directly affiliated factories and 18 holding companies of the group, most of the production processes require the use of oil-free compressed air. Since its establishment in 1991 till 2015, the entire group had a total of 70 centrifugal compressors of a Taiwanese brand running. The energy consumption of compressed air consumes is about 20% of its total operating costs.
In the beginning of 2015, one of the air compressors broke down. After we learned that customer was about to change supplier, Blair Huang, the sales representative of Atlas Copco realized that the Tongkun Group is a big player in the chemical fiber industry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Together with the oil-free engineering team they went to the customer compressed air room, measured the actual air consumption, analyzed the real energy consumption and verified the machine running state. They proposed one ZH15000 oil-free centrifugal compressor to replace the existing tow machines. They compare the audits results with the performance data of the ZH15000.
After numerous visits, a careful flow measurement, a detailed power calculation and a pipeline network analysis, our sales engineer explained the issues of current air compressed air installation with actual data. He convinced the customer with these clear arguments. Finally, oil-free air team got the order.
After the startup, the customers air demand remained the same as before but about 1.85 million RMB on electricity could be saved each year based on the customer’s calculation.
"Saving" is "earning”.
In this highly competitive market of the chemical fiber industry, a lower production cost means a big competitive advantage. The Tongkun group has nearly 70 centrifugal air compressors of different specifications in operation today. This huge opportunity for energy saving has attracted the leaders` attention. Therefore, the technical staff of Atlas Copco have been invited many times to make diagnostic evaluation of the other compressor installations. Meanwhile, the responsible managers for the air compressors were invited to visit the assembly line of Atlas Copco’s Wuxi compressor plant to learn about the energy saving benefits of Atlas Copco’s innovative products.
The customer was particularly satisfied with the use of Atlas Copco high-efficiency centrifuges and eventually ordered in total 25 ZH series centrifugal machines for their new projects and energy-saving retrofits of existing air compressors. At the beginning of 2017, the third phase of Hengbang Plant and the third phase of Hengrui Plant were newly built by Lin Mao, the business line manager of the OFA Department, and signed a sales contract for another 20 centrifugal air compressors with the customer.
From early 2015 to the end of 2017, the customer has ordered a total of 45 centrifugal solutions with a total installed power of 40390 kW. A total of 11 million RMB on electricity can be saved in only one year. This calculation is according to the average energy saving of 5% per centrifugal air compressor.
With the strength of Atlas Copco products` focusing on energy efficiency, reliability as well as the professional customer focused team approach of the sales representatives it has successfully proven that it evolves in a natural way from an equipment supplier to a consultant of air compressed solutions.
