LEADING Saudi manufacturer Zamil Air Conditioners, which recently announced the launch in the Gulf and Middle East of its first ever water-cooled Turbocor centrifugal chiller, will have the new product installed in Bahrain soon by Bahrain-based Al Namal Group, making it among the first to be used in Gulf markets outside Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Zamil Air Conditioners announced the launch of its SmartVan Automated Service for customers located in Saudi Arabia. The new system is designed so that customers can initiate service with a single call to the company’s call centre at 920000468. It then generates a case record and automatically assigns a new work order to the next available skilled field technician.

Zamil Air Conditioners is a subsidiary of Zamil Industrial Investment Company (Zamil Industrial).

Al Namal has entered into a partnership deal with Zamil Air Conditioners and will be delivering their first unit to a luxury hotel attached to a shopping mall in Bahrain.

It is the most efficient chiller of its type on the market today, able to reduce energy costs by up to 50 per cent compared with traditional units that use screw or reciprocating compressors, said a statement from Al Namal.

The innovative chiller was designed and produced by Geoclima, a strategic business unit of Zamil Air Conditioners and leading Italian manufacturer of air conditioning systems. The Turbocor chiller is water cooled, ranges in capacity from 370 tonnes to 1,300 tonnes and comes with an array of extraordinary features. They are suitable for both commercial and light industrial chilled water applications.

These new centrifugal chillers are the first in the Middle East to feature oil-free compressor technology. They also employ frictionless magnetic bearings, instead of the commonly used alternative compressor bearings, and feature a built-in variable frequency drive (VFD). The advanced-design chiller is also remarkably low noise, uses an extremely low starting current, and is designed to provide customers with a cooling solution that delivers truly sustainable performance and operation. These water cooled centrifugal chillers offer added flexibility over traditional chillers, including variable speed compressors that adjust exactly to required cooling loads, resulting in outstanding energy savings from digitally controlled two-stage centrifugal compression.

Ahmed Zaatari, VP of Zamil Air Conditioners, commented: “Various Zamil Air Conditioners business units, in cooperation with Geoclima, have combined their talents to create a unit that is truly advanced in terms of cooling capacity and energy savings. This new centrifugal chiller meets the climate control needs of the new regulatory environment and our clients more completely than ever before by operating with an increased efficiency that simultaneously lowers energy costs and protects the environment.”

Fawaz Bitar, head of the heavy duty cooling product unit at Zamil Air Conditioners, said: “As we launch this new group of products in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, we are aware of the advantages they will bring to customers and contractors alike in terms of energy efficiency, savings and ease of installation and maintenance. Our goal is to remain at the forefront of new product development so that we can transfer the benefits of our knowledge to our customers in a timely manner.”

This new tech centrifugal chiller currently powers the air-conditioning system at the Zamil Air Conditioners offices, located at the central air conditioners plant in Dammam’s Second Industrial City.

SMARTVAN SERVICE

Discussing the SmartVan Automated Service, the company said the new system operates as a valuable tool for communicating customer needs to field technicians.

Status notifications such as case open, scheduled or resolved are sent to the customer’s mobile devices to keep them updated on technician appointment times and other aspects of the case in accordance with the logged information. Trained SmartVan technicians then handle the service request with the utmost professionalism, equipped with quality assurance tools such as automated field worker logs and the ability to communicate immediately with home office personnel if necessary.

The target turnaround time for each case resolution is currently set at 48 hours, which the company believes will be the most popular aspect of the new SmartVan service according to customer feedback.

The new SmartVan system also allows technicians to access important case information online and determine the type of expert assistance required by the customer at the site. The company will continue to develop and upgrade the services provided by the SmartVan automation system in accordance with customer expectations as expressed through comments and other input mechanisms.