The only independent automotive compressor manufacturer in the world, Unicla International, is celebrating its 60th anniversary in October 2024, and the icing on its cake was its recent win as best product in an engineering class at the Australian Good Design Awards.
The award was for its eDrive electric compressor, released in 2020, that the company believes will change the working lives of the midnight technicians who are typically called out in the middle of the night to fix an air conditioning or refrigeration problem. Director of Unicla International, Mark Mitchell, received the coveted award at a ceremony at Sydney’s International Convention centre on 20 September 2024.
‘When we began the electrification of our compressors, we dubbed it our Midnight Technician Project,’ Mark said. ‘The name was introduced in my anniversary book, ‘Unicla and the Midnight Technician‘ in which we revealed the challenges and needs that technicians faced when typically called out in the middle of the night to get a system working again.
Critical examples are multi-million dollar mining assets that cost tens of thousands of dollars per hour when not working, or a fully loaded freight train with a valuable grain cargo. A locomotive cabin is an extremely hot place for drivers so operational air conditioning is essential to keep trains running. All of our design decisions are driven by the needs of the midnight technician.
‘We made a commitment to those technicians that our compressor would never actually fail. The compressor has become the heart of the whole air conditioning or refrigeration system. With our new technology, the compressor manages itself within a pre-determined set of safety parameters implemented to suit the air conditioning or refrigeration system. As proved recently in an Australian railway locomotive emergency, our eDrive’s timely superheat and pressure alerts led technicians instantly to a low refrigerant problem,’ Mark added.
Image above: Unicla director Mark Mitchell received the Australian Good Design Award for the eDrive compressor at a Sydney celebration event on 20 September 2024
‘At last, we have two-way conversation between technician and compressor,’ Mark added.
The data monitored by the compressor is relayed online back to the Unicla eConnect portal, or if not online, its log files stored onboard can be interrogated by a USB connection. With the online capability, it means that a technician can diagnose an issue before leaving the workshop. The ability to communicate with the machine improves efficiency and safety, lowers emissions and results in a longer life for the compressor.
The technology applied to the eDrive makes it almost impossible to fail. The Unicla family of electric drive compressors is among the first of a new breed of compressor that monitors itself and allows direct communication between technician and machine.
Just as telemedicine is changing human diagnostics, it is now possible for a compressor to be interrogated remotely to reveal its vital statistics, leading to a faster and more efficient solution to an operational issue. By monitoring pressures, temperatures and superheat, the eDrive can pinpoint failures in the whole system.
Winning the globally accepted Good Design Award boosts Unicla’s global status as an innovator at the leading edge of the vehicle electrification era. The awards, established in 1958, is the country’s most prestigious international accolade for design and innovation.
Image above: Unicla manager of global service and technical support, Jon Mitchell interrogates an eDrive compressor on an air conditioning unit in a rail locomotive hauling grain in southern Australia.
The Unicla eDrive was a ‘stand-out winner’, with the Design Award jury citing its exceptional design. They were impressed by the eDrive’s innovative approach to thermal management in mobile applications. Its focus on sustainability and efficiency was a significant advancement, and a real life example of this year’s awards theme, The Design Effect, underscoring the crucial role design plays in driving the transition to a more sustainable and less carbon-intensive future.
Rachel Wye, managing director of Good Design Australia said the awards reflected the profound ripple effects that exceptional design can have on people, place and planet. ‘Thoughtful design can drive meaningful change, not only enhancing user experiences and the way people interact with the world, but also contributing to a more sustainable and more prosperous future,’ she added.
Unicla's Global Reach
Unicla had humble beginnings in Japan, in the hands of an air conditioning pioneer, Mr Tetsuo Nobata, who was one of the first Japanese industrialists to travel to America in the 1960s to explore the latest mobile air conditioning technology. When he died unexpectedly in 2005, the compressor plant was closed down, but two of his distributors, Hong Kong automotive industrialist Peter Yee and Australian pioneer thermal specialist Mark Mitchell, kept the business and its design secrets alive, moving the entire plant to China.
With a head office in Hong Kong, a manufacturing plant in China, and manufacturing, design and testing at an R&D centre in Australia, Unicla now has a global reach and an impressive following of high profile customers. Unicla compressors can be found on truck and vehicle chassis built by Daimler of Germany, on vehicles manufactured by Thales, the global defence industry specialist, and on railway locomotives, earthmoving machines, mining equipment and refrigerated trailers around the world.
