It wins prizes and makes life a bit easier for the salespeople: the ICF valve has been very well received on the market.
In the USA, the ICV – and now its successor, the ICF range – helped Danfoss move from being an almost rare supplier to become the leading supplier within the business. Now ICV/ICF valves are supplied to the three largest compressor manufacturers in the USA.
“Customers are literally queuing up to be visited by Danfoss,” project leader Anders Mønsted says, as he assesses the situation.
The valve is used in large refrigeration systems. It was launched in 2004 under the name ICV. At that time, it was awarded the refrigeration industry’s ”AHR Innovation Award”. Now its successor, ICF, has recently been awarded the same prize for 2007– the fifth consecutive year that Danfoss has won the prize.
The design of the ICV/ICF is based on the principle of toy bricks. Presently,there are four basic versions in the ICF series, but they can be expanded to fit exactly the customer’s needs, in several thousand variants.
An extra advantage for the customer is that the valve – including control units and other equipment – is supplied as one component, not as a package of components. This means that it takes less time to be installed than the traditional valves for industrial refrigeration.