A Major air conditioning company is opening its largest UK manufacturing plant in Bradford amid continued rising demand for its cooling systems.
Airedale by Modine provides precision cooling equipment for data centres, an industry which it says is accelerating at an unprecedented pace due to AI and cloud-based technologies.
By Annette McIntyre
Now the company is expecting to create around 200 jobs over several years with the opening of the new manufacturing site in Bradford – its third in the UK. Production is expected to start in October at the 14.6 acre manufacturing site off Dawson Lane, which is currently used by Hallmark.
Vice President General Manager, Adrian Trevelyan said: “The site layout is already great for large-scale manufacturing operations and we couldn’t really have asked for much better from an existing building, but we do need to make some changes to optimise the layout. A lot of new plant will be needed to be brought in, particularly for the R&D labs which will represent a huge investment.”
The Bradford site will specialise in the production and testing of precision air conditioning equipment, such as computer room air handlers and fan walls. Airedale by Modine’s existing Leeds facility will focus on chiller production, with the move set to increase the company’s data centre cooling production capability in the UK by 150 per cent.
Mr Trevelyan described the new Bradford facility as “another exciting chapter in Airedale by Modine’s history”.
It’s a history which began half a century ago with a chance meeting at Leeds Bradford Airport between Leeds-based air conditioning engineers Peter Midgley and Alan Duttine. They formed Airedale in 1974 and the company went from strength to strength, offering cooling solutions to the emerging digital industry. It was sold to US company Modine in 2005 – and the backing of Modine proved invaluable when the Leeds site burnt to the ground in a devastating fire in 2013. The facility was eventually rebuilt and was reopened in 2016 by The Princess Royal. Airedale has just celebrated its 50th anniversary with a massive family fun day for more than 700 employees, friends and family members.
The company’s headquarters and centre of excellence is based in Rawdon with further production, testing and sales facilities across the world, including the US, Canada, Spain, India and Dubai.
Mr Trevelyan said: “The demand for Airedale data centre cooling solutions continues to grow because of our reputation for efficient, more sustainable cooling solutions, our reputation for quality and performance, and our commitment to research and development.
He added: “Our site in Leeds is home to our state-of-the-art R&D labs, training school, offices and production. As the business continues to grow, we recognise the need for additional production facilities within the UK to allow us to meet demand from our clients. Our strategy is to split the existing Leeds load, so that Leeds will only manufacture chillers, and the new site (Bradford) can focus on computer room air handlers (CRAHs) and fan walls.”
He said Airedale wanted to open a facility that is geographically close to its Leeds HQ.
“Having considered a number of locations, the site in Bradford was selected. The site met our criteria in terms of space, facilities and potential for expansion, and geographical proximity to our HQ. Furthermore, the support we received from Bradford council meant we could advance the transaction smoothly and access recruitment support if we need it. We are proud of our Yorkshire heritage and recognise that Bradford offers opportunities for industry that we want to harness.”
The company’s early forecasts project that more than 200 highly skilled production and support roles will be created over three to five years, with approximately 10 per cent of these being apprenticeship roles.
Mr Trevelyan said: “We are keen to share the message that many of these jobs will be skilled. We will deliver in-house and at times external training, delivering not just jobs, but the potential for career progression here at Airedale. This is something we are proud of as a company; we have many people at Airedale in Leeds who started as apprentices or in training roles, who now hold senior management and leadership positions.”
Notably, Mr Trevelyan progressed down that route himself, having started with Airedale many years ago in production.
He said: “We have already received a lot of interest from people who have heard about us opening at Bradford. Recruitment in Leeds is focussed on people that will train and then transfer to Bradford later this year.
“It is critical that when we do open Bradford, it is fully operational and self-sufficient, so we will open with a mix of newly trained and existing employees. Further recruitment will continue in the first few years of operation including apprentices.”
He said the data centre industry was experiencing unabating growth, fuelled by the “unrelenting demand” for data-hungry applications like social media, TV streaming, e-commerce and video conferencing.
“This growth trend has been relentless ever since the 1970s, as the world has gradually become more digital, but the recent surge in cloud and AI technologies has seen demand grow at an unprecedented rate and isn’t forecasted to slow down for a long time yet.”
He added: “At the heart of successful data centre operation is the cooling technology employed, and this is likely to evolve as IT densities increase. We are already seeing a slight shift as data centre operators look towards liquid cooling, as opposed to air cooling, as a means of managing the more intense heat loads that next generations chip designs are delivering. As such it is imperative that cooling solutions providers such as Airedale by Modine also evolve our solutions. Demand for hybrid data centres that employ a combination of air and water cooled solutions are growing in popularity and Airedale has invested in the technology to meet this demand.”
The business has seen huge changes over the years – but some things have remained the same.
Mr Trevelyan said: “Despite immense growth and global expansion, we have remained true to our core values of innovation, quality and sustainability. Long before legislation demanded it, we were investing in research to reduce the energy consumption and environmental impact of our solutions, because it is something we are passionate about and have been for a long time. We continue to invest heavily in our employees, and this is why every year we have so many people achieving long-service milestones of 20, 30 and even 40 years. Career progression has always been important to us, because we value our people, and want to deliver meaningful employment. Apprenticeships are core to our employee growth strategy with over 30 currently in the business with opportunities to progress into production management, production engineering, engineering design, programmable controls, research and development and other career roles.
“We have always had our eye on the future of the cooling solution, and invest heavily in R&D to ensure we stay relevant and meet our customer needs. All of the above has seen our reputation grow and driven an increase in demand for Airedale products. Because we have steadily grown in terms of size and product offer, we have been able to remain true to these values whilst expanding globally. We are much bigger than ever before, with production, sales and/ or testing facilities in Leeds, Bradford and Consett, (UK) Guadalajara (Spain), Dubai (UAE), Rockbridge (US), Grenada (US), Allen (US) and Calgary (Canada). We remain committed to quality, innovation and sustainability.”
He said the growth in the data centre industry, along with other industries requiring specialist critical cooling such as healthcare, education and nuclear, presented massive opportunities for Airedale by Modine.
“We pair our specialist cooling expertise with investment in R&D to continue to evolve and innovate. We can solve the problems faced by data centre operators, delivering 24/7 uptime for their servers by means of efficient, sustainable cooling solutions. We know the market inside out and with new product developments continually in the pipeline, we can deliver the solutions they need. This affords great opportunity. The challenges we face apply to most high performing organisations, and that is ensuring we manage further expansion whilst staying true to our values of innovation, quality and sustainability. The fact that we have managed this successfully for 50 years suggests we know how to do this, but there is never any room for complacency!”
