Case Study old – Process Cooling

CASE STUDY

Process Cooling Systems Sets the Standard for Sustainable Cooling Solutions at Rehrig Pacific’s New Plant in Buckeye, Arizona

Rehrig Pacific’s manufacturing facility in Buckeye, Arizona

When Rehrig Pacific, a leading waste, recycling, and supply chain solution provider, decided to take on a greenfield project in the desert for its new plastics manufacturing plant, the company knew it would face a few challenges. But designing a cooling system for its injection molding machines wouldn’t be one of them thanks to the team at Process Cooling Systems (PCS).

Before Rehrig Pacific broke ground on its new large scale state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Buckeye, Arizona, the company looked for ways to conserve water and reduce power consumption.

It became clear that installing a traditional evaporative plant cooling system and standard chillers for its injection molding machines wasn’t an option. Thankfully Rehrig Pacific’s relationship and collaborative efforts with PCS helped generate the right solution.

“PCS was able to engineer a truly unique solution — an all-air cooled chilled water system that uses substantially less water than traditional systems while efficiently utilizing and often reducing the required electrical consumption through the use of VFD managed pump loops at point of use,” explains Dan Fiscus, project engineer at Rehrig Pacific. “Reducing consumption is important to our company sustainability values and goals but we also had to meet local demand requirements, and this solution is game changer.”

PCS worked hand-in-hand with Rehrig Pacific for three months to design a chiller system that would provide mold and machine cooling with a focus on machine performance and energy conservation. This particular plant offered up a unique challenge not encountered at Rehrig Pacific’s other facilities.

This facility could not use a centralized cooling tower or adiabatic cooling system to provide machine cooling and chiller condenser cooling for water cooled chillers because these systems exceeded the water allocation allowed for this site.

The solution was to utilize high efficiency air cooled chillers with variable speed compressors on a system designed with a low-pressure variable primary flow loop to circulate water through the chillers and out to the machines.

An innovative system was designed with individual PLC controls that were placed at every machine, designed to optimize flow and temperature for mold cooling and machine cooling.

Process Cooling’s monitoring mold and machine cooling water, with point of use accuracy, to provide optimum performance of Rehrig’s injection molding machine.

Process Cooling System’s central chiller farm. Design, layout and installation all by Process Cooling System’s in house engineering, Project Management and installation team.

Utilizing this system design reduced the initial equipment and system installation investment by Rehrig Pacific in a number or ways.

It enabled them to minimize the initial equipment and interconnecting system piping required, reduce the size of the mechanical room, eliminate centralized machine cooling process piping and reduce the size of the chilled water process piping used for mold cooling.

The operational benefits provided by the higher flow rates and individual control at each mold include improved cycle times and part quality compared to other facilities running the same products. This was achieved while also eliminating or significantly reducing the costs associated with water use, chemical treatment and water discharge for this facility.

Rehrig Pacific installed a large-scale cooling system to support the cooling of their plant and injection molding machines. Moreover, the system’s design puts Rehrig Pacific in good shape to add more chillers when ready — and have them up and running within one week. This was all in the plan, as the Buckeye plant was built with the opportunity to expand the facility in the future.

Rehrig Pacific and PCS have partnered on projects for over 35 years, with PCS providing solutions for various Rehrig Pacific plant expansions in the past. National Project Engineering Manager Matt Rutigliano and team worked in full collaboration with PCS to design the Buckeye plant’s cooling system.

“When you are building a brand new plant there are so many different contractors involved – you encounter lots of obstacles and working with some just goes smoothly and without any issues. That’s what it’s like working with PCS,” Rutigliano says. “Our companies align very well in terms of values and culture. We are both family-owned with an established group of dedicated and long-standing employees who really care and take the time to engineer the right solution.”

Founded in 1963, Process Cooling Systems, designs, installs and services process water systems for industrial manufacturing operations of all types and sizes. With an eye on innovation, it has become the industry leader in providing turnkey solutions that emphasize energy efficiency, performance, and reliability.

With offices in Massachusetts and South Carolina, PCS continues to grow and has more than 60 employees with an average of 20+ years of experience. In-house engineers with full CAD capability provide mechanical and electrical design and qualified, licensed and insured piping crews from each location bring years of expertise and knowledge to a wide variety of piping systems. The manufacturing facility has both pipe and certified structural welders on staff in addition to an in-house UL certified electrical panel shop.

Rehrig Pacific looks forward to working with PCS on further installations and upgrades.

Rutigliano adds: “What I like about PCS is that they take the time to really understand what we do and then offer us the best solution available within our budget. PCS is an important preferred supplier – one that we count on and we very much appreciate their partnership and support.”

Process Cooling System’s central Chilled water pump tank. Design and installation service provided by Process Cooling System’s in house installation team.