July 26, 2011 Thinking Outside the Box

Volume 14 | Issue 2

Klinge Corporation is a leading producer of refrigerated containers, or “reefers.” More than just a supplier, the Pennsylvania-based busines

Klinge Corporation offers what many competitors cannot provide. The York, Pa.-headquartered enterprise designs and manufactures specialty transport refrigeration equipment, supplying customers with options that go above and beyond standard products. “We focus on design challenges while most of our competitors focus on off-the-shelf products not tailored to customers’ specific needs,” says Sarah Klinge, marketing manager for the family owned and operated company. “They concentrate on large-scale mass production. We design toward specifications. Thus, we create much more specialized transport refrigeration equipment.”

Klinge Corporation is a highly innovative enterprise. It was the first transport refrigeration manufacturer to introduce electronic and microprocessor controllers. Also, it developed equipment that enabled customers to use alternative refrigerants (R-134a and R-404a). The company is now considered one of the world’s leading manufacturers of specialized transport refrigerant equipment (commonly called “reefers”) and generator sets (or “gensets”). Its products provide clients refrigerated containers that meet the requirements related to the harshest environments and the most stringent testing. Klinge Corporation’s substantial capabilities and broad range of offerings serve general chemical, petro-chemical and pharmaceutical companies, military and AID organizations, and factories with hazardous areas. It also provides cold-chain solution consultancy and professional project management.

Klinge Corporation’s approach focuses on research, development and design. A concentrated effort toward engineering enabled it to envision and develop innovative concepts related to specialty transport refrigeration. Engineers boast an average of 20 years’ experience in the total design and production of innovative reefers and gensets. The 26-year-old company began in 1984 as a spin-off of York-Borg Warner, relates Klinge. Her husband is Allan Klinge, senior project manager, and her father-in-law is Henrik Klinge, the company president who began his career in the transport refrigeration industry in the early 1970s as a test engineer and installer. He worked closely with his father, the late Paul Klinge, a container industry pioneer.

BROAD PRODUCT SPECTRUM
Klinge Corporation’s main products are as varied as valuable. Refrigeration unit models handle organic goods in ambient temperatures. The units maintain temperatures from -20°F (-29°C) to 84°F (+29°C) automatically, using cooling and defrost cycles during operation. Klinge also offers PFR, or picture frame reefers, to serve military and general purposes, as well as an explosion-proof model designed to transport chemicals and other volatile products.

Tank container refrigeration units were designed to be fitted to ISO containers and like-sized tanks. They heat and cool a tank’s cargo by circulating brine or synthetic oil around external cooling coils. The machines’ materials withstand the harshest conditions in worldwide transport. Klinge gensets are just as innovative. They were designed for installation on the ISO-certified container frame top header and for top corner castings on standard refrigerated containers. Frame design assures maximum cargo capacity and optimal fuel consumption.

The nose mount gensets satisfy rigorous demands of ocean, over-the-road, and rail transport of multiple sized refrigerated containers. Another specialty involves transport refrigeration equipment for hazardous goods. Klinge offers redundant refrigerated containers (AKA dual refrigeration systems) with primary and back-up refrigeration units that handle especially valuable or temperature-sensitive cargo.

MARCHING FORWARD
New contracts represent just one component of a larger plan to target new markets. Acquisition is another component. Recently, Klinge Corporation acquired the Kjellerup, Denmark-headquartered Norfrig Equipment, which develops technology that matches Klinge’s game plan.

From this partnership, Klinge Corporation anticipates that new concepts and products will evolve as a result of the collective engineering and design talent of the merged companies. “We anticipate new opportunities and expect to remain a premier innovator,” says Klinge.

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