Supporting a more sustainable marine industry: Thermo King re-manufactured parts

Cost – lowering the barrier of entry

Many global shipping lines using Thermo King’s marine technology will stipulate of course the use of new replacement parts only. Yet equally, there is a large market – particularly in developing countries – for cheaper options. Hence the value of extending our capabilities for re-manufactured parts to ensure:

• Thermo King has a recognized presence in this market for second hand, repaired and refurbished equipment, rather than being effectively disqualified by potential customers due to the cost of brand-new parts
• Our technology has a longer working life versus being scrapped the moment a costly part stops working and can’t be repaired
• The re-sale value of our units is maximized for clients, who have a wider audience to sell their used equipment to, when modernizing existing reefer fleets

Quality – delivering reassurance as standard

As previously touched on, product quality is a strategic imperative for Thermo King. It’s what our brand is built on, to give customers peace of mind that they are buying both technical innovation and dependability.

Therefore, one of the biggest risks to this reputation comes from smaller producers in local markets creating re-manufactured parts on their own and selling them as genuine Thermo King components – without us having any visibility into what’s happening. In fact, it was the ambition to minimize this possibility that played a key part in the decision to build up our own re-manufactured program with the goal of:

• Providing re-manufactured parts that have been through extensive quality checks prior to their general availability
• Extending these tests to cover parts of the product that haven’t been reported as faulty, and to preventatively replace them as necessary
• Confidently applying a one-year warranty to all our re-manufactured products for extra reassurance

Sustainability – recycling with purpose

Alongside quality as a key corporate priority, Thermo King gives equal weight to the challenge of sustainability. This commitment can be seen in our Gigaton Challenge,and helpingreduce one billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e) from customers’ carbon footprints by 2030. A goal that demands not just the development of fuel and emissions-efficient units, but also that our technology empowers the needs of the circular economy.

Here, re-manufactured products play a vital role because:

• Re-manufactured parts help lower the number of used Thermo King products being scrapped
• That means we can extend the life of units, and therefore reduce the strain on natural resources that’s associated with new products
• The cost savings involved are also helping lower the barrier for firms to meet their own sustainability ambitions

The end result being fewer parts going to landfill, and more efficient recycling of those raw materials already being utilized. At the same time, we’re also helping cut the sustainability burden of disposing used technologies and refrigerant.

Re-manufacturing in action

We currently have re-manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands, Panama, and Florida – with plans to establish a presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

As for the process the program follows, when a part is identified as faulty, it’s sent to one of these regional hubs rather than being scrapped. Once repaired and extensively tested from a quality perspective, the component is then listed as available for purchase – giving audiences the choice of going with a new or re-manufactured part.

What’s more, this is a choice that extends to Thermo King’s international dealer network, with various service and warranty programs now incorporating re-manufactured parts. The fact that our dealers view re-manufactured products as “good as new” is testament to the excellence being achieved by the program – particularly as they are also the people responsible for continuously inspecting a component’s performance over time.

Seek your cost, quality, and sustainability advantages

Avoiding scrap, recycling faulty parts, and offering low-cost solutions to our customers: Thermo King’s re-manufacturing facilities are helping further align our marine technologies to the realities of global demand.

To find out what that could mean for your business, click here.