Air cleaners hum away in millions of Chinese households, filtering out tiny pollutant particles blown into the air by China’s booming industries. One Chinese company’s air cleaner does the job with particular efficiency, circulating up to 750 cubic meters of air per hour so quietly that its owners can sleep soundly at night. Not only a fan from ebm-papst makes that possible, so does a sophisticated design for the air flow.
Advantage by design
“For this machine, we worked very closely with the manufacturer — not only finding the right fan but also making design recommendations so that the customer can get the most out of our product,” says Henry Cheng, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ebm-papst in China.
Air flow and acoustic
The engineers in China simulated the ideal air flow in a lab and the acoustic performance in a special acoustic chamber. Just a couple of years ago that wouldn’t have been so simple. Before the site in Shanghai got its own test center in 2012, the Chinese engineers couldn’t perform such measurements on their own. “Before that we either had the tests done at ebm-papst in Germany or commissioned external labs to perform them. But with Germany it took a lot of time — also because of language barriers — and with the labs the equipment didn’t exactly satisfy our requirements,” says Cheng. The engineers in the test lab were able to test many other factors in addition to air flow and acoustics. “We invest in new test equipment every year,” says Cheng.
The ebm-papst subsidiary in Shanghai has been growing ever since it was founded in 1996. At first the location served only as a sales center for the products from Germany and was staffed with 13 employees. Soon the site got its own production facilities, and then a research and development department and the test center in 2012.
“Now we can react to the needs of the local market much better” Henry Cheng, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, ebm-papst China
Today more than 1,700 employees work in China. “Now we can react to the needs of the local market much better,” says Cheng, adding “With the test lab, we’re basically part of the customer’s development team. We can demonstrate our tests for them live on-site and make our recommendations. We want our customers to be able to make great products.” Like the air cleaner, for which the manufacturer has won a prize for its special design.
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