The European Remanufacturing Centre, at the former Perkins Engines production facility in Shrewsbury, employs 200 staff and could become the largest engine remanufacturing facility in Europe once fully developed.
Part of Caterpillar's Remanufacturing division, the facility is to receive used diesel engines from Caterpillar dealers and customers all over Europe. The components will be cleaned, refurbished, reassembled to the company's standards and made available to customers under the Cat Reman brand.
The company said the Shrewsbury centre will have the capacity to remanufacture thousands of items per year from 1kg water pumps to 1200 bhp power packs for the British Army's Challenger II tanks.
Recycling
Shrewsbury's Cat Remanufacturing Centre is the first such Caterpillar operation outside North America. One of the world's largest engine remanufacturers, Caterpillar processes more than two million units annually, recycling more than 45,000 tonnes of used products each year.
The company insists it seeks to approach a “zero landfill model”, and at the moment an average 61% of the weight of the engine components is directly re-used after refurbishment, saving 85% of the energy used in manufacturing new components.
About 20% of the remaining materials are recycled by the company itself, and the remainder is recycled elsewhere, the company said.
Steve Fisher, general manager of Caterpillar Remanufacturing Services, said: “The European Remanufacturing Centre not only adds significant capacity to Cat's reman capability worldwide, it also gives our customers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East many more options.”
Earlier this year, Caterpillar took over the Rushden-based engine recycling business Wealdstone Engineering Ltd (see letsrecycle.com story).
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