Fortunato Della Guerra –INRES Coop Technical Director
Commercial refrigeration has a sound present and a certain development ahead of it: its centrality in the system of the assets of the Large Organized Distribution is relevant and acquired. Today there is neither one store with a suitable space and a technological consistently adequate infrastructure dedicated to the offer of fresh foods.
A centrality proven also in the vision of investments: intervening on the commercial refrigeration and carrying out the upgrade of power plants, cells and benches weighs no less than 25% (on the contrary, often more) in the redevelopment of a shop, to the extent of being determinant in deciding on relevant restructuring interventions.
Our role, as a technical subject at the service of the customer on one hand and dialoguing with the manufacturer and the refrigeration technician on the other hand, allows us to observe a positive trajectory that certainly concerns the plant in its whole, qualitatively and technically upgraded from the point of view of both efficiency and of reduction of the environmental impact, boosted by regulations such as Ecodesign and Regulations on refrigerant gases, whose performances are assured by the availability of increasingly skilled technicians.
Thermodynamics has found a precious ally: electronics that has brought a methodological breath of new knowledge about the refrigerating plant and its single elements: it has equipped it with a remote-control tool, which has allowed us to shift from a presumed performance, maintained with the repair, to a performance preventively monitored and managed. The Internet of Things, increasingly spread in new plants, determines an epochal change in the way of looking at the plant, which we live with utmost interest: starting from the higher guarantees to comply with HACCP regulations with the maintenance of temperatures up to the possibility of intervening to improve the energy efficiency.
New technologies need new competences. In this historical period, there is a lack of new skilled and competent technical professionals in each sector and this is even more visible in the refrigeration ambit: we need to rely on more technicians able to intervene in qualified manner versus the increasingly larger range of uses of the refrigerating circuit.
Therefore, the time is precious for the trained refrigeration technician. The more he becomes capable of operating and controlling the system remotely with the support of all digital tools, the more his time becomes well spent. His availability grows because he must not be engaged in trivial or routine activities, his professionalism is more appreciated as he is a problem-solver and not “mechanical adjuster” and his weight in the supply chain increases, because he becomes an irreplaceable partner and not only for the maintenance, but also for the optimization of the performance.
Times have changed and the LOD pays increasing attention to costs: our need of lower total operational cost is undeniable but, in some cases, this is made up by “inversely proportional” costs. A better maintenance can generate lower energy spending and minor expenditure in spare parts. In perspective, it is possible imaginable to recognize also economically the highly professional job of those who dialogue with us and collaborate with their competence and upgrade, listening to proposals that emerge from our historical heritage of data and expertise, in order to decrease the yearly costs born.
Manufacturers make available more and more efficient technologies, the legislator urges to research advanced solutions with features of lower environmental impact, but it is up to us, technicians and refrigeration engineers on the field, to make this efficiency and this lower impact turn into concrete results, with a win-win effect in a precisely “cool” market, of cold meant in “new” way.
