Sustainable manufacturing made easy at Clauger
Founded in 1971, Clauger started as a family-owned company, specializing in industrial refrigeration and air treatment. Through the decades, it has continued to strengthen its operation, and is now made up of more than 2200 employees, 90 different trades, 15 subsidiaries, and over 3000 clients across 90 countries. “Our wide range of experts offers comprehensive support throughout the design, manufacturing, installation, service, maintenance, and optimization of our solutions,” shares Luke Facemyer, the company’s CEO of North America.
Clauger’s core expertise is in industrial refrigeration, process air treatment, and more recently in environmental solutions like depollution, energy optimization and recovery, and emission reduction. Furthermore, the business offers lasting solutions for a diverse range of markets, including dairy, meat and poultry, fruits and vegetables, logistics, ice rinks, alternative proteins, green energy, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and more.
According to Luke, two aspects set Clauger apart from its competition. Firstly, innovation is at the core of its DNA, and is central to its mission. “We manufacture specialty equipment to fill the unmet needs of a market or client, adding concrete value over the long term. Working in close partnership with our customers, we co-develop tailor-made solutions, while giving them the benefit of our expertise.
“The equipment manufactured and installed by Clauger is a result of strengthening our multidisciplinary teams throughout our history. This has led to the development of a few star products such as custom skid packages, heat pump systems, EcoCTA (hygienic air handling system), fast cooling tunnels and cells, MyPortal3E (an AI tool that optimizes sites over time), MyClaugerDetect, and more,” says Luke.
Intelligent solutions
Complementing its innovation, Clauger also excels in service solutions, and delivers the expertise required for customer plants to operate safely, reliably, and economically. “The business also supports clients through changing market conditions, consumer demands, and new regulatory standards. Our service team partners with clients to help reduce energy consumption, cut OpEx costs, adapt or improve output and enhance safety. We work alongside our customers, sharing our expertise to design and implement the right solution to suit their needs. Some of our service solutions include predictive and preventive maintenance contracts, energy audits, PSM programs, compressor rebuilds, airflow management audits, and hygiene or quality audits,” Luke explains.
The business’ leading operation facilitates the production of exemplary products. Two of Clauger’s solutions, MyClaugerDetect and Airec’Odor, were recently awarded the Solar Impulse label. “To address environmental challenges without compromising economic growth, Bertrand Piccard and the Solar Impulse Foundation have identified over 1000 clean and profitable solutions. Assessed by independent experts, the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution label serves as a credible marker of quality to decision-makers in business and governments,” Luke elaborates. “MyClaugerDetect is an intelligent solution that optimizes the treatment of odors and atmospheric emissions while reducing the cost of activated carbon by a factor of ten.”
Airec’Odor, on the other hand, is a product that offers one digital plug-and-play solution, adapted for all types of systems and sites. This non-intrusive tool easily connects and uses artificial intelligence and machine learning. It measures, monitors, and evaluates the risk or presence of harmful emissions, refrigerant leaks, and overall air quality. It combines real-time data from different sources, such as atmospheric, process-related, and data from residents, to determine the risk level based on the detected air quality. Using machine learning and aggregated data, the tool communicates with the installation to ensure optimal long-term performance.
For Luke and the team at Clauger, preserving the planet’s future is both pressing and non-negotiable. “Many manufacturers are equally sensitive to this and working to improve their environmental impact.
Over the past several years, Clauger has invested heavily in this area and will continue finding new ways and technologies to transform customer constraints into opportunities.”
Challenging the status quo
By leveraging longstanding industrial refrigeration and air treatment innovations, Clauger designs custom solutions that integrate both optimization and sustainability, allowing it to assist clients in achieving their green objectives. “We help reduce their energy bill, recovering and adding value to energy, using natural refrigerants, and offering free cooling. We aren’t trying to be the best company in the world. Rather, we strive to be one of the best companies for the world. Now more than ever, people need safe, quality products created from environmentally friendly processes.
“Since 2013, we have saved our customers the equivalent of 23,000 tons of CO2 and reduced our clients’ energy consumption by 124 GWh. These savings are the equivalent of one nuclear reactor or energy consumption for 400,000 homes. Our savings double each year as our innovations and technologies evolve.”
Clauger has gone through periods of significant innovation and development throughout its 50-year history. These periods of growth have historically been during times of external crises and economic downturns. This phenomenon is due to its agility and culture of transforming challenges into opportunities. Clauger has several advantages during times of global disruption, some examples include financial autonomy, agility and its people. “Clauger is 100 percent family-owned, which allows us to have a culture of long-term thinking, and implement strategies that help secure and anticipate future challenges. During the pandemic, our teams were able to quickly identify existing solutions and knowledge that could help support our clients with new needs related to the crisis.
“Finally, our people are at the core of our business. We have a flat organization and encourage employee autonomy which drives innovation, constantly challenging the status quo. This creates a culture of cohesion and transparency; everyone tries to contribute to our collective efforts.”
Looking to the future, Luke is optimistic about the journey that lies ahead. Clauger’s global ambition is to become the leader in industrial refrigeration and air treatment around the globe. “In the next five years, our development will bring us closer to this goal. We plan to surpass one billion euros in global revenues, continue hiring talented people, and improve our sustainability impacts. These efforts will ensure we remain a trusted name for clients everywhere,” Luke concludes