Higher production and a surge in exports have prompted Coil-Tech to plan an expansion of its air conditioning coils factory at Mina Sulman.

And a joint venture with an American firm - US Chiller Services International- has made significant strides in the servicing and repair of large tonnage chillers and central air conditioning systems, gaining high-profile clients in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The Bahrain-US enterprise also conducts tailor-made technical training services for staff of facilities.

Owner Nedhal Shaheen says the company could begin enhancing its production facilities with new machinery from the US and the Far East in 2005 to realise a 40 per cent increase in production.

Coil-Tech produced 4,000 units of coils of various sizes in the financial year from April 1, 2002, to March-end 2003 against a little over 3,000 units in the previous year. One unit denotes the length of a window AC coil or a chiller coil size of up to 32ft. Some 80 per cent of the units conform to the bigger sizes.

The coils, made of aluminium or copper fins and copper tubes, are used in chillers and direct expansion (DX) units and as cooling coils in air-handling units and fan-coil units.

The company has an ISO 9001:2000 certification granted by Lloyd's Register Quality Assurance, UK. It has also met the stringent requirements of the BS EN ISO 9001:2000 for manufacturing, installation, servicing, technical training and repairs.

By virtue of gaining the ISO 9001:2000 certificate, it is acknowledged that the management and staff are actively involved in the quality process and a documented process for the control of product manufacturing and service as well as having a close working relationship with customers and vendors with strict adherence to written quality procedures.

Shaheen says some 30 per cent of the coils are exported to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the former accounting for a greater portion. With the coming expansion, exports could be substantially stepped up.

Coil-Tech, a 100 per cent Bahraini company, started production in 1995, making heat exchangers (condenser and evaporator coils). It also performed car AC repair services, which it wound up a few years later.

In 1997, it opened a central AC services division and in 2001 came the joint venture with US Chiller Services International for large-tonnage (from 200 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes) chiller services and repairs.

US Chiller Services expects to keep growing and expanding its presence. It has stakes in two other joint ventures in the Gulf, namely the Dubai-based Al Shirawi/US Chiller Services and Saudi Arabia's Zamil Cool Care/US Chiller Services.

The entry of the joint ventures brought relief to chiller owners, who were earlier at the mercy of chiller manufacturers' agents and had to wait for qualified engineers and pay greatly inflated prices for factory service, said Mohammed Razwan, Coil-Tech's technical and marketing executive. "The manufacturers' agents acted as if they were doing the customer a favour by providing a service engineer - a service engineer who most likely was not factory trained or certified. A facility chiller, if not serviced and repaired by a certified chiller specialist, will cost thousands of dollars in useless repairs and excessive energy consumption," said Razwan.

The three Bahrain resident engineers, who really are large-tonnage chiller specialists, have some 25 to 35 years' experience. There are five other experienced engineers, three of them in the UAE and two in Saudi Arabia.

US Chiller Services claims they are the only people in the Middle East to have factory- and industry-certified specialists to maintain and repair York, Carrier, Trane and McQuay liquid chillers. They are also members of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers and the Refrigeration Service Engineers Society.

Coil-Tech/US Chiller Services also trains facility managers and technicians down to the end user. It specialises in tailor-made training packages to suit the end-user's requirements.

Heading the training division is Bernie Servello, a former factory-training engineer at the Trane Training Centre in the US. Servello was responsible for technical training on the Trane Centrifugal chiller line as well as the helical rotary screw chiller line for the entire US and has also worked as a field engineer and manager for the Carrier Corporation and York Company.

The US Chiller Services courses provide engineers and service and facility personnel with in-depth understanding of the operation, maintenance and repair of any of the manufacturers' centrifugal, screw and reciprocating chillers no matter what the tonnage size is.

The training offers an insight into compressor design, unit operation, unit installation, start-up and commissioning, chiller performance, service diagnosis and troubleshooting.

"Once we are given the opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities, the difference between our organisation's abilities and those of the agents will be quite apparent to the end-user with whom we develop a long-lasting business relationship," said Dan Mizesko, manager of US Chiller Services (Gulf).

"In other parts of the world, it's an accepted fact that independent chiller service organisations (like US Chiller Services) provide a better alternative for service than going to the agent or manufacturer for repairs or maintenance.

"The truth be told, chiller manufacturers and agents are not interested in providing quality solutions and services that benefit the end-user - they are interested in selling new chillers.

"In the Gulf, the practice of going to an independent is still a fairly new concept, but this concept is being quickly reversed judging by the list of US Chiller Services' contracts and retrofit projects it has been awarded, and the list of satisfied and loyal customers."

Among US Chiller Services' recent contracts are ones with City Centre establishments in Sharjah, Ajman and Dubai; and Fairmont, Sofitel, Crowne Plaza and Lexus Towers in Dubai. Its important Saudi projects include the King Fahd Military Hospital, Dammam; the King Faisal Specialist Hospital, Riyadh, and the King Fahd Causeway.

In Bahrain too, US Chiller Services has overshadowed its competitors winning a host of government and private sector projects. These include the maintenance of chillers at the Bahrain International Airport, the Plant House at the Salmaniya Medical Complex comprising the chillers, all the chillers at the Ritz Carlton, the entire HVAC equipment at Bahrain Development Bank, Al Fateh Mosque or the Grand Mosque, HSBC, Ministry of Islamic Affairs, the centrifugal chillers at the Sheraton Complex, all the central markets of Bahrain, Kuwaiti Building, Khaleej Finance, Bahrain Credit, Bin Hindi Showroom, Baqer Furnishing, Gulf Closures and stadiums affiliated to General Organization For Youth & Sports.