The increased need for energy-efficient technology after the Ukraine invasion meant that when a German heat pump manufacturer asked CALDAN Conveyor to build an overhead system for its new plant in Slovakia, it seemed like any other routine order.

But a surprise was in store for CEO Claus Nørgaard and his team a few weeks later. Production was already under way when the customer called to say that market demand was rising so fast it needed a solution twice the original size. “We were already constructing a huge conveyor, with annual capacity to convey 150,000 heat pumps to the customer’s paint shop. So, it was a bit of a nice surprise to hear they wanted to double output to 300,000 units,” Claus recalls.

Suddenly it was unclear how the project – a three-way collaboration between CALDAN, its Czech customer ITS, a paint plant construction specialist, and end customer VAILLANT Group – could be delivered. “We pulled the handbrake, travelled straight down to VAILLANT with our technical manager and spent two days in Germany on the drawing board sketching and working out how to do it within the factory footprint,” says CALDAN Project Manager Marcus Henningsson. “We came up with a solution that was even better and more flexible than the first one.

” The next challenge was to build and deliver the solution in the tightest of time frames…

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