Small Cold Room
Research
‘A research to determine the customer needs of small cold room users in order to reach a clear segmentation of those users’
By
Arjan Soer
November 2005
University of Groningen
Faculty of Management & Organization
Small Cold Room Research
‘A research to determine the customer needs of small cold room users in order to reach a clear segmentation of those users’
Author
Arjan Soer
Student International Business & Management Faculty of Management & Organization
University of Groningen
Supervisors Biddle
Paul Brulez
Head R&D Biddle Olivier Muller
Head Marketing Biddle
Supervisors University of Groningen
Drs. Rudi de Vries
Department International Business & Management Faculty of Management & Organization
Florian Becker-Ritterspach
Department International Business & Management Faculty of Management & Organization
Date
November 24th, 2005
‘The author is responsible for the content of the master’s thesis, the copyright of the master’s thesis rests with the author’ © 2005’
Table of contents
Management Summary ... 6
Preface ... 9
Chapter 1
Introduction ... 10
§1.1 Background Biddle... 10 §1.2 Background research ... 11Chapter 2
Research... 12
§2.1 Problem statement ... 12 §2.2 Research question ... 12 §2.3 Sub questions ... 12 §2.4 Conceptual model ... 13 §2.5 External analysis... 14 §2.5.1 Customer Analysis ... 15 §2.5.2 Competitor Analysis ... 15 §2.5.3 Market Analysis ... 15 §2.6 Internal Analysis ... 16 §2.6.1 Performance analysis ... 16 §2.6.2 Strategy analysis ... 17 §2.7 Data collection... 17§2.7.1 Background of the data collection ... 17
§2.7.2 Analyzing the data collection... 19
§2.8 Prerequisites and boundary conditions ... 21
§2.9 Research structure ... 21
Chapter 3
Theoretical framework... 23
§3.1 Introduction... 23
§3.2 Methods of market research... 23
§3.3 Methods of external and internal analysis... 25
Chapter 4
Customer analysis... 28
§4.1 Introduction... 28
§4.2 Background cold sector ... 29
§4.3 What are the important characteristics of customers? ... 30
§4.3.1 Current problems ... 30
§4.3.2 Evaluation of problems and relevant aspects... 31
§4.4 Summary ... 36
Chapter 5
Competitor analysis... 37
§5.1 Introduction... 37
§5.2 Identifying the competitors ... 39
§5.3 Analyzing the competitors... 40
§5.3.1 A normal door/slide door ... 41
§5.3.2 Double doors... 42
§5.3.3 Fast opening doors ... 43
§5.3.4 Wooden door... 44
§5.3.5 Plastic doors ... 45
§5.3.6 Air curtains... 46
§5.3.7 Iron door... 47
§5.3 Summary ... 49
Chapter 6
Market analysis... 50
§6.1 The characteristics... 50
§6.2 The segmentation ... 52
§6.2.1 Problems per segment ... 53
§6.2.2 Equipment per segment... 54
§6.3 Summary ... 56
Chapter 7
Internal analysis ... 57
§7.1 Introduction... 57
§7.2 Technology of Biddle ... 57
§7.3 Analysis of the Multi Air-stream Technology ... 59
§7.5 Summary ... 64
Chapter 8
SWOT-analysis ... 65
Chapter 9
Conclusion... 67
Chapter 10
Recommendations... 70
§10.1 Recommendations about the products and the organization... 70
§10.2 Recommendations for additional research ... 70
Bibliography... 72
Appendix I - Semi-structured Interview
I
Appendix II - Questionnaire
II
Appendix III - Market Size Cold Rooms
VI
Management Summary
Biddle produces climate separation products for all kinds of situations. One of them is the cold room sector. Special about the cold rooms are the need to prevent the warm air from coming in and the cold air from getting out instead of the other way around. Biddle doesn’t cover the complete cold sector, only the big cold rooms are targeted. Biddle wants to penetrate the market of the small cold rooms: rooms smaller than 1.000m³. This research determines the best way to do this. It was determined with the following research question: ‘How can the small cold room market in Europe be segmented into target groups, and how can Biddle produce specific products to fulfill the needs within the target groups?’
The following results come from the Customer Analysis: The results indicate that 7% of the cold room users experience one or more problems and 93% don’t. These 7% are more interesting for Biddle because Biddle could develop a solution for them. The remaining 93% of the cold room users are most likely satisfied with the performance of their equipment and are therefore less interesting to Biddle.
Six problems came forward in the questionnaire. If they are ranked according how common the problems are, the formation of ice on the floor inside the cold room is the one that is most present. This problem is followed by the forming of mist, a fluctuating temperature when the doors are opened, the forming of ice on the products, a decreasing temperature outside the cold room and the forming of ice on the ceiling.
The evaluation of the aspects concerning small cold rooms, gave us the following insights. The most important aspect is not related to the equipment itself but it is a service of the company, the secretary. Less important are the size and the noise level of an air curtain. From the standard deviation the conclusion is drawn that the importance of an aspect correlates positively with the homogeneity of the answers. End users find it very important that electronical equipment should be handles automatically.
The Competitor Analysis resulted in the conclusions that there are nine competitive products. These products can be divided into two groups: they can function as a permanent solution or they are additional to a permanent solution. The first group is: a normal door, a slide door, a double door and a fast opening door. The second group is: a
wooden door, a plastic door, an open door, an air curtain and an iron door. The air curtain of Biddle would be in the additional group. The biggest competitor in the additional group is the wooden door. The main reason is the price of a wooden door that is much lower than the prices of the other products.
The total of size of the small cold room market and the growth rate of the complete small cold room market were determined in the Market Analysis. The small cold room market is divided a public and private part. The size of the private small cold rooms was derived from the figures of the public small cold room sector. The figures per segment weren’t determined, but they were determined per country. Germany, France and The United Kingdom are the biggest small cold room markets. A big gap exists with these three countries and Spain, Belgium and The Netherlands.
The annual growth is very low, almost stable.
The four segments are Austria, Switzerland, Scotland and Italy. The usage of additional equipment concerning small cold room entrances are the highest in Austria, Switzerland and Italy.
In the Internal Analysis the strengths and weaknesses of Biddle’s Multi Air-stream Technology and Biddle’s strategy were analyzed.
The strengths of the Multi Air-stream Technology are: ¾ Possibility of open doorway working is perfect. ¾ The prevention of ice or mist formation.
¾ The reduction of energy costs, especially when the traffic increases. ¾ Maintaining a stable temperature inside the cold room
The weaknesses of the Multi Air-stream Technology are ¾ The price
¾ Not a stand alone
¾ The inflexibility concerning the width of the door ¾ The need of an ambient area to be conditioned ¾ The influence of the B-stream on the temperature
¾ The influence of other door on the efficiency of an air curtain ¾ The direction of evaporators
Biddle’s strategy is a differentiation strategy that has a goal to fulfill the end users needs. Biddle’s internal strengths meet the demands of a differentiation strategy, except the R&D-department and Biddle’s pricing policy. This department had a major influence on the products in the past, and it sometimes resulted in a product that was very sophisticated but didn’t meet the customer needs.
Preface
This research is my final thesis for the University of Groningen. It is an obligatory part of my study at the Faculty of Management, where I am majoring in International Business. It covers the identification and segmentation of customer needs regarding the entrances of small cold rooms.
I started with my graduation assignment in March 2005 with Biddle BV in Kootstertille. During this research, I’ve stayed for five months in Croissy Beaubourg near Paris in France.
Several people have helped me during this research. I would like to thank three persons from Biddle especially: Paul Brulez, Olivier Muller and Iana Torres. Paul for helping me to get on the right track and giving me the opportunity to finish my study with such a wonderful experience, Olivier for supporting me during the whole process and giving me all the facilities I needed and Iana for being there when I bothered her with lots of (un)important questions.
I also would like to thank Rudi de Vries and Florian Becker-Ritterspach from the University of Groningen for helping me with the theoretic part of the study. They pushed me to go for that extra mile.
Arjan Soer September, 2005
Chapter 1 Introduction
This chapter will explain the background of Biddle and the background of this research.
§1.1 Background Biddle
Biddle is a part of the Carver Group, based in the United Kingdom. The Carver Group is a manufacturer of clamps and work holding equipment.
Biddle BV in The Netherlands was founded in 1957 as part of Biddle Continental Companies in order to function as a sales outlet. This was a result of an order from the British occupation force of Germany. Biddle opened a sales outlet in Amsterdam, while the production was still in the United Kingdom. After a while, it became clear that the delivery time was too long, so a production site in The Netherlands was started in Sassenheim. Nowadays, the company is based in Kootstertille.
Biddle is a manufacturer of climate equipment and develops, produces and markets units for the separation and control of climate in public buildings, shops, supermarkets, offices and industrial premises. Air curtains are an important part of Biddle’s range of products and they are known by the general public as the units suspended above shop doors, which blow down warm air. By warming up the cold air before entering the building and preventing the escape of warm air through the open door, Biddle creates a comfortable inner climate in combination with an open door. Air curtains can also be used in chill and cold rooms. The temperature in these rooms is lower than the temperature outside of these rooms. Chill rooms are rooms that have a positive temperature (f.e. 5°C.) and cold rooms have a negative temperature (lower than 0°C.). This research is about the cold rooms with a negative temperature and with a volume less than 1.000m³.
Biddle has offices in six countries: Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, The Netherlands and The United Kingdom. Biddle Export covers all the others countries by the use of distributors, except Spain regarding the chill and cold rooms. The Spanish chill and cold room-sector is covered by Biddle France. The products are manufactured in The Netherlands and The United Kingdom and they are developed by the Research and Development-department that is based in The Netherlands.
§1.2 Background research
Biddle has several types of air curtains for different situations in their portfolio. Biddle covers the cold sector by the use of two different types of air curtains:
1. The chill room air curtains (the so-called DAT-air curtains) for separating rooms with a difference in temperature from 2-12°C in the cooled room and 20°C in the exterior areas.
2. The cold room air curtains (the so-called MAT-air curtains) for separating rooms with a difference in temperature from -20°C in the cold room and approximately 15°C in the exterior areas.
The sales departments of Biddle assume that there is a need for an air curtain for small cold rooms, with a surface up to 1000m3 in the food market, supermarkets and distribution centers. This air curtain should create a climate between negative temperatures (-20°C) and positive temperatures (+15-18°C). The current MAT-air curtain is too big for these small cold rooms and the current DAT-air curtain can’t deal with negative temperatures. Biddle is forced to develop a new product to cover this market. Biddle could develop a smaller version of the MAT-air curtain, but Biddle chose to do a research first. Biddle wants to expand their knowledge of the small cold room market because Biddle had some bad experiences when they entered the small cold room market with the DAT-air curtains and the MAT-air curtains. Within Biddle, people were very enthusiastic about the MAT-air curtains, because it could do technically what no other product could do. After introducing these two products, it became clear that a climate separation with a temperature difference of 40°C was more complex than initially was thought. This resulted in a turnaround of the attitude of Biddle regarding the cold room sectors; the optimism about the DAT-air curtains and the MAT-air curtains turned into skepticism. Is was not that the technology, the innovative part, was not good, but there were problems and needs of customers that were not foreseen.
This research is done before Biddle is going to start the development a product for the small cold rooms. Biddle still wants to be very innovative, it still wants to produce products that give the best result and are from the highest quality, but Biddle wants to prevent itself from making the same mistake twice.
Chapter 2 Research
This chapter will explain the set-up of my graduation assignment. The start of this research is the explanation of the problem statement.
§2.1 Problem statement
The problem statement will be divided according to the classic model of De Leeuw (2000:290) that consist of the objective, the main question and the boundary conditions. The objective is the reason why it is useful or important that the knowledge will be produced. It has to make clear who the ‘clients’ of the research are and the reason why this research will be useful for them. In this case the client is Biddle and the usefulness is their goal to penetrate the small cold room market in Europe. Biddle wants to know what the small cold room market looks like, what the user needs are, how a segmentation of this market in target groups looks like and where these markets are. Biddle wants to know this because in their current business the sales departments of Biddle encounter on a regular basis opportunities in the small cold room market. Biddle wants to investigate this market before entering it.
To fulfill this objective, Biddle demands the following: ¾ A clear overview of the customer needs.
¾ A clear segmentation into target groups of the small cold room market.
§2.2 Research question
The main research question of this research is:
‘How can the small cold room market in Europebe segmented into target groups, and how can Biddle produce specific products to fulfill the needs within the target groups?’
§2.3 Sub questions
To answer the main research question, it is necessary to understand that the main question consists of different aspects which each individually have to be answered. The different aspects have to be determined. In order to do that, the external environment of
Biddle has to be studied and also the internal environment has to be looked at. In this part it will be made clear which question will be handled with in which part of the research. The following sub questions are being answered:
1. What are the current problems in this sector? 2. What are the user needs?
3. What are the current competitors in the small cold room sector?
4. What are the characteristics of a segmentation of the small cold room market? 5. To which level can Biddle meet the demands from the small cold room market?
In the next paragraph will be explained where and how the sub questions are being be answered.
§2.4 Conceptual model
The conceptual model is a visual rendition of the research. The conceptual model that’s used in this research is based on Aaker (2001:19) and Alsem (1997:49). The results of this research should lead to recommendations about target groups of small cold stores in Europe. The research is split up in an external analysis and an internal analysis. This will be followed by a SWOT-analysis. Based on this SWOT-analysis, conclusions will be drawn and recommendations will be made.
Figure 2.1 Conceptual model §2.5 External analysis
The external analysis in this conceptual model consists of three aspects: a customer analysis, a competitor analysis and market analysis.
Customer analysis: It is the first step of external analysis. The goal is to get a clear view
of the current problems that end users encounter in the small cold rooms and the needs of the end users in the small cold room sector.
Competitor analysis: This comprises the identification of competitors. Competitors can
be direct rival products but also substitute products.
SWOT-analysis
Conclusions and recommendations about target groups of small cold
rooms in Europe
Internal analysis External analysis
Competitor analysis of organizations with solutions for
entrances for small cold rooms Customer analysis of (potential)
users of small cold rooms
Strengths, weaknesses of Biddle in the small cold room business Opportunities, threats the small
cold room sector
Performance analysis of Biddle
Market analysis of the small cold room sector
Market analysis: Market analysis has as a goal to determine the attractiveness of the
markets. Markets comprise the different segments of the market, based on the size of the segments, each segment’s motivations and the unmet needs.
§2.5.1 Customer Analysis
The first step in the external analysis and the strategic market-planning context is to analyze the customers.
As a result the following sub questions will be answered by doing a customer analysis: ¾ What are the current problems in this sector?
¾ What are the user needs?
§2.5.2 Competitor Analysis
Competitor analysis is the second phase in the external analysis. The goal is gaining insights that will influence the product-market investment decision or the effort to obtain and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage (Aaker, 2001:57).
In this paragraph the following sub questions will be answered in this paragraph: ¾ What are the current competitors in the small cold room sector?
The first step is to identify the current and potential competitors. There is an endless list of companies that are current or potential competitors. It is impossible to analyze them all and analyzing just a few of the competitors wouldn’t give a complete view of the competitors. This is why this research determined and analyzed the competitive products and judged them on their strong and weak points.
§2.5.3 Market Analysis
A market analysis builds on the customer and competitive analysis to make strategic judgments about a market and its dynamics. This implies for Biddle to get an overview of the attractiveness of the market for small cold rooms and the potential participants in that market. The segmentation of the market is the most important aspect of the Market Analysis.
In this chapter the following sub questions will be answered:
In the cold room sector that Biddle covers with the DAT-air curtain and the MAT-air curtain, Biddle has identified five segments. The same segmentation is used in this research, because it is easier for Biddle to add a new product as an expansion of their segmentation instead of developing a new segmentation. The size and growth of the market was determined as a whole and not per segment. The segmentation is as follows:
1. Austria 2. Switzerland 3. Scotland 4. Italy 5. Wales §2.6 Internal Analysis
It is important that there is a fit between the internal possibilities (strengths/weaknesses) and the external threats and opportunities (Leeflang, 1998:241). Although there is more emphasis on the external analysis, a part of this research will comprise an internal research. To get an unbiased picture of the attractiveness of potential product-markets, an assessment of those markets should be independent from the perspective of its own resources and capabilities. This research aims mainly at determining the strengths and weaknesses of Biddle. The identification of the most attractive markets will be followed by the determination whether the company is able to serve those markets successfully (Mühlbacher et al., 1999:303). It is useful to know if there are characteristics in this business that make some options infeasible without a major organizational change. The external analysis is to determine what the customer wants; the internal analysis is to determine whether Biddle can cover these demands.
The sub question that will be answered here is:
¾ To which level can Biddle meet the demands from the market?
§2.6.1 Performance analysis
This is the analysis of the technology that Biddle uses in the cold room market. It determines to what extent the current technology can cope with the customer needs and the competitors.
§2.6.2 Strategy analysis
This part consists of a strategy analysis of Biddle. The determination if the current strategy is the right strategy to enter this market and why there is a small change in the approach of Biddle in entering a new market. The introduction of the MAT-air curtain and DAT-air curtain was without a market research, the possible introduction of an air curtain for the small cold room market is preceded by a market research.
§2.7 Data collection
The conceptual model is based on the way Aaker and Alsem theories to conduct a market analysis.
§2.7.1 Background of the data collection
Because there is no known source that could provide the data that could answer the sub questions, the data have to be collected during this research. As a result, this research will be based mainly on primary data. This research is partly an exploratory research and partly a descriptive research. An exploratory research explores the problem and identifies the relevant variables of the problem (Saunders et al., 2000:284). The problem here is to identify the user needs of users of small cold stores. This research is also descriptive because descriptive research explores customers for example by their consumer behavior and their market shares. It is also important to know their behavior concerning small cold rooms. That makes this research also descriptive.
The exploratory part will be done by the use of semi-structured interviews with people from Biddle’s R&D department and the different Sales Departments. According to Saunders et al. (2000:245), the best type of interview for an exploratory research is an in depth interview. Due to the fact that Biddle is already active in the cold room sector, the assumption was made that most of the problems and needs are not unfamiliar to Biddle. This is the reason that semi structured interviews were used.
Products in cold rooms are vulnerable and/or perishable. This is the reason that cold room users have to obey to the HACCP-regulations. HACCP means Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points and are regulations concerning the control of all food related companies (VWA, 2004:website). These HACCP-regulations are made custom to every kind of
situation, also for cold rooms. It indicates in which stage of the food producing process one operates and which limitations (f.e. temperature, humidity, etc.) are appropriate. Users of cold rooms have to obey to the HACCP-regulations and are checked randomly to see if they obey to those regulations.
The data that comes from the interviews and the data from the HACCP-regulations will form the qualitative part of the data collection.
The qualitative data will be quantified for a quantitative data collection. The quantitative data collection will be done by sending out questionnaires to small cold room users. An example of such a questionnaire can be found in Appendix II. The quantitative research has to determine if and to which level the subjects of the qualitative research are present in the small cold room market. Normally, a questionnaire is not that suited for doing an exploratory research, but there are two reasons why a questionnaire was done.
First, the qualitative aspects were already identified by semi structured interviews. Second, from a geographical point of view, it is not practical to do personal interviews in five countries, let alone the time constraints of this research. And it was feasible to determine that by using a questionnaire. A big advantage of a questionnaire compared to interviews is that the data can be processed easier and it enables the use graphs and statistics to visualize the results for a better understanding.
This means for the Customer Analysis that most of the problems and needs will be identified during the qualitative data collection and that the quantitative data collection determines how important those problems and needs are for the small cold room user. Regarding the Competitor Analysis, the qualitative data collection will determine what the known competitors are and what their characteristics are.
The data collection for the Market Analysis will be based on the quantitative data that comes from the Customer Analysis and the Competitor Analysis. This data is used to determine the characteristics of each segment. Secondary data is used to determine the market size.
The information that is needed for the Internal Analysis comes from the interviews and from the statements that Biddle made in their own marketing reports. This is mainly qualitative. The information from the marketing reports is secondary information; the information that comes from the interviews is primary.
§2.7.2 Analyzing the data collection
Two interviews were held with the head of R&D and one with a project manager; all of them are The Netherlands. Two interviews were held with two sales representatives from the Sales Department in The Netherlands and one interview with the head of Biddle Export. Several interviews were held with a sales representative from the Sales Department in France. This was the only sales person in Biddle who is specialized in the cold sector. The cold room market in other countries is covered by general sales people. There were several interviews with the Marketing Director of Biddle and his assistant. The Marketing Director is also the head of the Sales Department in France. It wasn’t possible to do interviews with the sales people from Belgium, Canada, Germany and The United Kingdom. The people from Biddle Belgium and Biddle Germany weren’t interested in cooperating. Biddle Germany sent a document with their findings regarding the cold rooms. Biddle Belgium didn’t cooperate at all. Biddle UK couldn’t cooperate due to the distance and Biddle Canada was excluded because Biddle Canada isn’t active in the cold room sector.
However, an assumption was made that the results of these interviews can be generalized to all the countries for two reasons. The first reason: the segmentation of the cold room sector is based on industries and not on countries. The second reason: the most experienced people regarding the cold rooms are the sales people from France and the R&D in The Netherlands.
There were 37 participants in this research that filled in the questionnaire. The representation per segment was:
1. Austria 11 participants 2. Switzerland 8 participants 3. Scotland 4 participants 4. Italy 12 participants 5. Wales 0 participants ¾ Installers 2 participants
Wales didn’t respond at all and this means that it isn’t possible to draw any conclusions regarding this segment. This is the reason that only the first four segments will be analyzed. The opinions from installers of cold rooms were asked as
well because they’re the ones that have to solve the problems. So they have a lot of knowledge about cold rooms. Some of the questions for end users didn’t apply to them so they were left out of their questionnaire.
Not every participant has filled in each question. This is due to company restrictions about information which they think is confidential or because the question didn’t apply to the specific respondent. There were three installers responding to the questionnaire and they can only speak about their experience with cold rooms and not about their own cold rooms. Only the participants on each question were taken into account and their answers were generalized to the complete small cold room sector. Every question was answered by at least 30 persons except the question about the prices of their current solutions and the price they are willing to pay for a Biddle solution. There weren’t enough answers on this question to use them. According to research literature 30 participants is in this case the recommended minimum in doing a statistical analysis like this (Saunders et al., 2000:155). Every other question had enough respondents to do that. Several multiple choice questions were used in the questionnaire. There was a risk that some important variables were overlooked, despite the interviews and the HACCP-regulations. The participants had the possibility to add variables. For example, the list of known problems was not complete; there were participants who added the problem of ice on the ceiling. The information that was needed about the current and preferred prices is based on the prices of the competitive products, see Chapter 4. Biddle can use these prices as a basis to position their product(s).
§2.8 Prerequisites and boundary conditions
¾ Biddle is defined as the six Biddle companies in the six different countries (Germany, Belgium, France, Canada, The Netherlands and Great Britain with the latter two having a production site who produce also for the other countries) and the export division for countries without a sales office.
¾ The market is defined as the small cold rooms in those countries.
¾ Small cold rooms are cold rooms with a volume that is less than 1000m3.
¾ The research is conducted in France, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany and Spain.
¾ The current and potential customers are defined as the customers that are interested in buying a solution to open door entrances in small cold rooms.
¾ The current and potential competitors are those competitors aiming to fulfill the same needs. These could be direct competitive products or substitute products.
¾ Getting access to data about the small cold room market in Europe.
¾ The research has to be completed in approximately six months, starting on March 1st, 2005.
§2.9 Research structure
In this paragraph the outline of the research will be explained.
Biddle was introduced in chapter 1. There is a basic explanation of the problem which motivated Biddle to do a research. Subsequently, in this chapter the problem statement was mentioned, the main research question was explained and the sub questions were mentioned. In chapter 3 the theoretical framework will be covered more thoroughly. Marketing concepts will be explained and their relation with this research. In chapter 4 the potential and current customers will be judged by doing a customer analysis. In
chapter 5 the competitors of Biddle in the cold room market will be analyzed by doing a
competitor analysis. This chapter should give insight in the competitors and their products and/or substitute products. Next, chapter 6 will comprise a market analysis to enable the forming of judgments about the markets and their dynamics. In chapter 7 an internal analysis will be made to see if there is a good fit between the demands of the
market and Biddle’s capabilities to cover those demands. In chapter8, a SWOT-analysis is done, based on the External and Internal Analysis. Chapter 9 will handle the drawing of conclusions based on the external analysis to define the opportunities, threats, trends and strategic uncertainties.
Chapter 3 Theoretical framework
§3.1 Introduction
In chapter 2 the research questions were introduced which were formulated on basis of the theory. This chapter will give a closer look on the theory on which the research questions are based. Paragraph 3.2 will cover different methods of market research to determine which aspects are important for doing a market research and to prove that there are a lot of similarities in these methods.
§3.2 Methods of market research
According to Leeflang (1998:278) market research is ‘systematically and objectively
gathering, recording and analyzing of information that are important for determining and solving the marketing problem’. Market research can be qualified by several
indicators. If this research is qualified on a classification of market instruments, it is in a way a marketing result research. The reason is that Biddle is interested in the market potential of the small cold sector. It can also be identified as a product research because Biddle wants to develop a new product for the small cold room sector. This research can be seen as a mixture of those two research qualifications, because Biddle wants to segment the small cold sector into target groups. Those target groups are based on its needs and the target groups that are interesting for Biddle are the ones with market potential.
As mentioned in Chapter 2, this research is partly an exploratory research and partly a descriptive research. Saunders et al. (2000:97) state in their book that exploratory research is particularly useful if one wants to clarify the understanding of a problem. Two important ways to do an exploratory research are a search of the literature and talking to experts on the subject. A search of the literature will be in this research secondary data collection and talking to experts in the subject will be primary data collection.
Descriptive research is defined by Saunders et al. as ‘to portray an accurate profile of
forerunner of the exploratory research. First, it is necessary to get useful secondary data by exploring all data sources on the internet, inside Biddle and outside of Biddle, like branch organizations. The determination of the information that is lacking will follow after the first step. This will end in a primary research to get the lacking information. This will be done by interviewing account managers and other experts of the cold sector inside Biddle and outside Biddle, for example installers and end-users.
If one keeps the text above in mind, it is also interesting to see the analysis according to the theories of Philip Kotler. According to Kotler, marketing should be defined as ‘a
human activity, aimed at the fulfilling of needs and desires by means of trading processes’ (Tiggelaar, 2003:4). This is a very general definition. Its relation with this
research becomes more clear, looking at his definition of marketing management: ‘The
analyzing, planning, implementing and controlling of programs that are meant to the development, building and maintaining of useful trading processes with customers, all in favor of realizing the companies’ goals’ (Ibidem, 2003:4). At this point the relation
becomes clearer. From Biddle’s point of view, this research is an analysis to see if it is useful to implement a program to develop an air curtain for small cold rooms in order to realize the company’s goals. The other aspects in the definition are having influence on the possible development of an air curtain, but these are initially not part of our research, therefore they will be left out. Kotler mentions five ways to handle this marketing management, namely the production approach, the product approach, the sales approach, the marketing approach and the social marketing approach (Ibidem, 2003:4). The reason why Kotler is discussed is because of the way Biddle used to do business was a typical example of the product approach. This approach implies that customers prefer products of high quality that give the best results or are very innovative. This is typical Biddle, especially in the cold sector. There is no comparable product to the MAT-air curtain. Those products are not comparable on the used technical aspects, because they are seldom air curtains and when they are air curtains, they’re also seldom as efficient as the Biddle products. And, contradicting to Biddle, no known competitor has the same high ambition to develop a product that covers the needs of customers. Moreover the customers in Chapter 4 and the used technology on which Biddle’s high ambitions are based, in Chapter 7. But it proves that Biddle can be characterized as a company with a
product approach. However, this research can also be qualified as an aspect of the marketing approach. It is not that Biddle changed their approach; it is more that they added a few things to their original approach. The marketing approach states that companies have to define the customer needs and desires of their target markets and have to fulfill these needs in a more effective and efficient way than their competitors do. This covers exactly what this research is about. The customer needs and desires have to be defined in order for Biddle to develop a product of high quality. This is in order to get the best results and Biddle wants to achieve this by being innovative.
§3.3 Methods of external and internal analysis
External analysis involves an examination of the relevant elements external to an organization. The analysis should be purposeful, focusing on the identification of opportunities, threats, trends, strategic uncertainties and strategic choices. Internal analysis aims to provide a detailed understanding of strategically important aspects of the organization. This is the definition of an external analysis by Aaker (2001:19-20) on which this research is partly based. He states that an external analysis and an internal analysis provide the input to strategy development and a set of strategic decisions.
Alsem states that the internal analysis and the external analysis are the basis of formulating the goals and strategies of a SBU or an organization. This corresponds with Aaker’s definition.
In case of this research it means that Biddle wants to know what the customer needs are in the small cold store sector in order to get a clear segmentation of this market into target groups and develop product(s) for those target groups. Knowing the customer needs is part of the external analysis. To complete the external analysis to make relevant target groups a competitor analysis and a market analysis are conducted. This is according to the models of Alsem en Aaker. By doing an internal research of Biddle, other criteria for the segmentation will come up. Which of the target groups are relevant considering the strengths and weaknesses of Biddle? This will lead in the end to a selection of target groups in which Biddle is going to invest. And this is according to the end of both models, the strategic development of Biddle.
But there is one major difference between the theories of Alsem and Aaker and also Leeflang. Alsem (1997:20) starts with the internal analysis and Aaker (2001:20) and Leeflang (1998:105) with the external analysis. The main reason that Alsem starts with the internal analysis is that an internal analysis that comprises a thorough evaluation of the followed strategy offers an important input for the analysis as a whole. In this research, this is not applicable, because the main reason of this research is to determine the customer needs. This is a part of the external research. Doing it this way is based on the assumption that Biddle already knows that major aspects that play a role in the cold sector and they already cover a big part in the cold sector. Concluding, Biddle is expected to be suited to cover this market from an internal part, the external analysis will be used in which way exactly. The internal research therefore will be used as a last filter to determine the most favorable target groups for Biddle. This is also the reason why an environmental analysis is left out of this research. An analysis of cultural, governmental, economical, technological or demographical aspects is not necessary because the use of cold stores in the countries in which Biddle operates, are restricted to the same regulations. Due to these regulations, the customer needs can only be influenced in an economical way. If this is an important factor, it will become clear in the customer analysis, because an important part of the customer needs is the price they are willing to pay for air curtains.
§3.4 Why SWOT-analysis?
Another aspect in which Alsem differs from Aaker and Leeflang is the use of a SWOT-analysis at the end of the internal and external SWOT-analysis. This tool is used, because the major advantage of doing a SWOT-analysis at that point, is the direct link between the external analysis and internal analysis (Alsem, 1997:21). It will be clearer if the evaluation of the external and internal analysis is dealt with in a different chapter, Chapter 8.
The reason to do a SWOT-analysis is that from the interviews and from the product development within Biddle, the conclusion was drawn that it is not a dynamic sector. The MAT-air curtain for example, is updated a few times, but its technology and its usage has
not changed over the years. The same is for the users of the MAT-air curtain, they didn’t change either. Therefore it was not useful to do a scenario analysis. To describe it by Saunders et al. (2000:96), this research is a cross-sectional study, the study of a particular phenomenon at a particular time. Most surveys are cross-sectional. Another argument for this research being cross-sectional and not longitudinal is that this research is time constrained. A longitudinal study which covers only 6 months is not possible.
Chapter 4 Customer analysis
§4.1 Introduction
The first step in the external analysis is to analyze the customers. The customer motivations and the unmet needs are the important aspects of the customer analysis. As a result the following sub questions will be answered by doing a customer analysis:
¾ What are the current problems in this sector? ¾ What are the user needs?
As mentioned in the Chapter 2, the scope of the research will be the users of small cold stores in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and The Netherlands. Because there are many reasons to conduct a customer analysis, the goal of the customer analysis has to be clear. There are two main reasons for a customer analysis (Alsem, 1997:97):
1. Control and evaluation of the marketing performance of the product, like the reputation of Biddle and brand preference of the customers.
2. The realization of a marketing strategy; this comprises the choice of a target group.
In this market research is based on the on the latter reason. Looking at the sub questions, one can see that the user needs will lead to a segmentation of the market. This will be seen as realizing a marketing strategy.
But before doing that, it is necessary to explain what the basic problems are in the cold sector in general. These basic problems are based on the interviews with people from R&D and from the Sales Department from Biddle and on the HACCP-regulations. The subjects that were covered in the interviews can be found in Appendix I. It is important to know this basis in order to understand which factors Biddle has to know in order to get a good understanding of the small cold room sector.
§4.2 Background cold sector
After studying the HACCP-regulations and doing these interviews, the following needs were identified:
¾ The solving of the ice formation ice inside the cold room on the products, the floor and the ceiling. This is important because ice on the product could be disastrous for the product and ice on the floor could be dangerous for entering the cold room (Gac, 2000:72).
¾ The solving of the mist formation in the entrance of the opening when the door is opened, because this could lead to dangerous situations if there is no clear sight when people enter the cold room. Especially when fork lift trucks are used, but because the research is about small cold rooms, this will not be that common.
¾ The prevention of a fluctuating temperature in the cold room, because this could be fatal for the products in the cold room. There are several products that have to be stored at a constant temperature (Lucas et al., 1993:21).
¾ The prevention of a decreasing temperature in the areas outside the cold room when a cold room is opened. This will result in a great energy loss which has to be covered by extra freezing capacity to keep the cold room at the right temperature. It will also result in an uncomfortable situation in the exterior areas and it could lead to several ice problems, like it is described above.
¾ The time a cold room is opened each day is one of the most important things in determining the most appropriate equipment concerning their entrance and also a cause of most of the problems. A cold room that is opened very rarely has fewer problems than a cold room that is opened very frequently.
¾ The need for electrical equipment inside the cold room to be regulated manually or automatically. Sometimes the equipment has to be regulated, because the conditions can change every second. This could be done manually, for example adjusting the conditions each morning or automatically by the use of several sensors that monitor the situation.
¾ The price end users are willing to pay for a solution to all the possible problems. Because there weren’t enough answers to make any statements about the price, the
price of competitive products is used to determine the price spectrum for Biddle. This can be found in the Competitor Analysis.
The list above is not a list just based on the HACCP-regulations the interviews, but also on the feedback that was received from the participants in this research and on some literature.
After identifying the above, the cold room users were how they value the aspects that were identified. The aspects of energy costs, the size of the equipment and the noise level of the equipment were added, because of the assumption that energy costs are very important for companies and that the size and noise level could be practical reasons for customers to buy or not to buy a certain solution for cold room entrances.
§4.3 What are the important characteristics of customers?
§4.3.1 Current problems
The percentages of respondents that experienced each problem are represented in figure 4.1:
Figure 4.1 Current problems complete small cold room sector
Current problems 19% 38% 3% 32% 27% 14% 91% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% The forming of ice on the products inside the cold rooms.
The forming of ice on the floor inside the cold
rooms.
The forming of ice on the
ceiling
Bad secretary A fluctuating temperature inside the cold rooms when the
doors are opened.
A decreasing temperature outside the cold rooms when the
doors are opened.
From all the respondents, 91% does not encounter any problems. This means that 7% encounters problems. There is a risk that participants do not experience something as a problem and therefore don’t mention it. To prevent this from happening, the respondents weren’t asked for their problems, but they were asked: Which of the following phenomena do you experience? And this question was followed by a list of different kind of phenomena that can be seen as a problem. It was important to avoid the word ‘problems’.
The result was that 7% of the respondents encounter phenomena that are defined as problems. Because respondents can have more than one problem, the percentages of all the problems do not add up to 7% but to more.
The conclusion that is drawn from these results is that six problems are present in the small cold room sector. Just looking at these results, it can be stated that the participants that don’t encounter any problems, don’t need to have a new product to solve their problems, but only something that can maintain their current situation. This means for Biddle that there will be a demand for replacement, but not for improvement.
All the problems are familiar to Biddle, more over this in the Internal Analysis in Chapter 6. For Biddle, this percentage is very interesting, because 7% of all the small cold room users have at least some kind of problem. This means that 7% of all the participants give Biddle an opportunity to solve that problem. A further analysis of these problems will be done in the Market Analysis in Chapter 5, were these percentages are divided over the segments.
§4.3.2 Evaluation of problems and relevant aspects.
The problems that came forward in the previous paragraph are used to determine to what level these problems are important. The following aspects were added:
¾ The possibility of open doorway working; this is an important aspect because it is the strongest feature of a Biddle product. Biddle allows open doorway working and it is very useful to know if this is appreciated by end users.
¾ The energy costs; given the ever-increasing processing and exportation of frozen food, refrigerated storage is consuming more and more energy by the day (Coulomb,
2005). It is important to know how end users are evaluating the costs of keeping their cold rooms at the right temperature.
¾ The level of good secretary;
¾ The size of an air curtain; a particular question about air curtains because they could cause some installation problems.
¾ The noise level of an air curtain; the noise level of equipment could be annoying. These values were measured by the use of a five point rating scale. It was done like this because it is a good way to collect data about the attitude of people (Saunders et al., 2000:195). The lowest level of importance is 1 point and the highest level of importance is 5 points. This is not a bi-polar scale; a score of 1 isn’t the opposite of a score of 5. This is important to notice when conclusions are drawn of these results. A score of 1 means that the aspect is not important, but it doesn’t mean that the aspect has a negative effect
Figure 4.2 Evaluation of aspects concerning small cold rooms
Evaluation of aspects concerning cold rooms
20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 12% 19% 16% 15% 30% 25% 15% 10% 20% 30% 12% 14% 15% 16% 19% 20% 25% 23% 17% 18% 19% 20% 21% 22% 23% 24% 25% 21% 31% 31% 30% 13% 14% 22% 21% 22% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Open doorway working No ice on the products No ice on the floor No mist when the door is opened
Energy costs Keeping a stable temperature inside An air curtain needs to be small An air curtain needs to be silent A good after sales service
on the product. For example, when you by a car and you’re not interested in cruise control, you wouldn’t mind if the car has cruise control, you just wouldn’t value it as important. See figure 4.2 on the previous page.
A percentage component bar chart was used, because it is easy to compare the differences between the bars. And therefore it is easy to determine which aspects are most important to the end user.
The interpretation of the average score of each aspect, gives a ranking of aspects based on their importance. The results are as followed:
Figure 4.3 Interpretation evaluation of aspects concerning small cold rooms
Analyzing these figures indicates that a good secretary is very important to the customer. Secretary is different from all the other aspects because it is not something that could be a feature of the equipment that Biddle wants to develop. It is more an additional service that comes with the equipment. This ranking is best to be interpreted by Biddle as the aspects that have to be included in the equipment and the order in which they have to be implemented in the equipment. A rough distinction is made of 4 groups that is based on these results.
Group 1: A good secretary
Group 2: Keeping a stable temperature
Energy costs Interpretation evaluation 2,1 3,8 1,6 3,4 2,9 0,5 3,6 3,1 4,9 0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 5,0 A good after sales service Keeping a stable temperature inside
Energy costs No ice on the products No ice on the floor Open doorway working No mist when the door is opened An air curtain needs to be small An air curtain needs to be silent
No ice on the products No ice on the floor Group 3: Open doorway working
Group 4: No mist when the door is opened An air curtain needs to be small An air curtain needs to be silent
The background of the aspects in each group could tell us if there is some kind of binding characteristic per group. In group 2, two aspects are based on ice forming, which comes from the different levels of humidity of the air. These two aspects are related to each other. Energy costs and keeping a stable temperature are based on the free exchange of air that goes in and out of the cold room. In group 4, the size and the noise level of an air curtain are related, because both aspects are physical characteristics of an air curtain. The mist formation is based on the humidity of the air. Group 1 and 3 are groups that have just one aspect, so these groups can’t be analyzed like this.
No hard conclusions can be drawn that’s based on these groups, because the characteristics of the different aspects in each group are too different.
Secretary is the most important aspect and it is not a feature of the product itself. Today’s market requires new elements to the marketing mix to help the marketer stay active (Vavra, 1992:15). A better secretary is one of these new elements. Secretary is not only about repairing broken products. Secretary can be expanded by activities to keep customers satisfied after purchase, increasing the possibility that current customers will return to Biddle when their current product has to be replaced, increasing the possibility that current customers will by another product from Biddle and measure to what extent the customers are satisfied by Biddle’s products and services. Secretary will change into customer relations (Ibidem, 1992:18). It is not possible to determine to what extent Biddle has good customer relations in this research, but it is important to state that this could influence the structure of the company. Moreover this subject in the Internal Analysis.
Assuming that the evaluation is a standard distribution, the standard deviation can be derived. See table 4.1 on the next page.
Standard deviation of the evaluated aspects
Aspect Standard deviation
Secretary 0,3
Stable temperature 0,7
Energy costs 0,9
No ice on the products 1,0
No ice on the floor 0,7
Open doorway working 1,0
No mist 1,3
Small air curtain 1,1
Silent air curtain 1,3
Table 4.1 Standard deviation of the evaluated aspects concerning small cold rooms
The less important an individual aspect is evaluated, the higher the standard deviation becomes. Only the forming of ice on the floor and the size of an air curtain don’t fit perfectly in this statement. The higher the standard deviation, the lesser end users tend to agree on the subject. Everybody fairly agrees on what is important, but they disagree on what is unimportant. No ice on the products and no ice on the floor are overall equally important, but end users tend to agree more on the importance of no forming of ice on the floor. The importance for Biddle of the standard deviation is, that it can see whether an important aspect is important to everybody or if it is very important too a smaller group and less important to another smaller group. This is something that could be interesting to investigate, for example the prevention of mist forming.
An extra aspect that was not concluded in this evaluation but is important to know, is the need if electronical parts in the equipment should be handled manually of automatically. This wasn’t included in this evaluation because it is a ‘yes-or-no’-question. All the other aspects are from Biddle’s point of view needs that have to be fulfilled as good as possible. The secretary has to be as good as possible and the air curtain needs to be as small as possible. But making the equipment electronically controlled or not is just a matter of putting in a small electronical device. At least 89% of all the respondents want the equipment, if possible, to be controlled manually. In combination with the high need of the customers of a good secretary, it leads to the conclusion that customers want to be in control of with the equipment. They want something that works on its own and if it doesn’t, somebody has to come and fix it.
A further analysis on the evaluation of the problems concerning small cold rooms will be done in Chapter 6, where these results are divided over the segmentation.
§4.4 Summary
To sum up, 7% of the cold room users experience one or more problems and 93% don’t. These 7% are more interesting for Biddle because Biddle could develop a solution for them. The remaining 93% of the cold room users are most likely satisfied with the performance of their equipment and are therefore less interesting to Biddle.
Six problems came forward in the questionnaire. Ranking them according how common the problems are, the formation of ice on the floor inside the cold room is the one that happens the most. This problem is followed by the forming of mist, a fluctuating temperature when the doors are opened, the forming of ice on the products, a decreasing temperature outside the cold room and the forming of ice on the ceiling.
The evaluation of the aspects concerning small cold rooms, gave the following insights. The most important aspect is not related to the equipment itself, but it is a service of the company, namely the secretary. Less important are the size and the noise level of an air curtain. The ranking of the aspects isn’t related to the background of these aspects. From the standard deviation the conclusion is drawn that the importance of an aspect correlates positively with the homogeneity of the answers.
Chapter 5 Competitor analysis
§5.1 Introduction
Gaining insight in the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors and the future behavior of the competitors are the goals of an analysis of the competitors (Alsem, 1997:145). This part will focus on the strengths and the weaknesses of the competitors and not on the future behavior of the competitors. The latter would take too long to determine to be implemented in this research.
Leeflang (1997:129) states that five types of competition exist, namely:
1. Product-form competition; competition between two brands who are aiming at the same market segment with the same product. In the case of Biddle it could be another manufacturer with an air curtain for cold stores with the same characteristics.
2. Product category competition; competition between brands with comparable products. In the case of Biddle it could be another manufacturer of air curtains. 3. Generic competition; competition between products that fulfill the same needs of
customers. In the case of Biddle it could be wooden doors or fast opening doors. 4. Budget competition; competition for the money of the consumer. For Biddle it
could be manufacturers of other industrial equipment.
5. Vertical marketing system competition; competition between rival vertical marketing systems. In case of Biddle this could be the amount of time and interest a distributor of Biddle puts in Biddle-products compared to the time and interest he puts in competitive products in his portfolio.
This research will cover the generic competition, because of the following reasons. The first one is that product-form competition nearly doesn’t exist. Also is the market segment where Biddle positions itself (the top segment) not that large, therefore an analysis of the product category competition would rule out a great part of the (potential) competitors and customers. The generic competition is the spectrum of competition to analyze. The generic need of this research is defined as all sites where cold stores are available.
There are five steps in a competitor analysis (Alsem, 1997:146): 1. Identification and choice of the competitors
2. Determining the goals of the competitors 3. Determining and evaluating the current strategy
4. Determining the success factors, the strong and weak points of the competitors 5. Prediction of the future strategy of the competitors
Because Biddle wants to enter the small cold store market, identifying the competitors is toe most important part at this point. Therefore, the sub question that will be answered in this part is:
¾ What are the current competitors in the small cold room sector?
This question will be answered by taking the first and the fourth step, because competitive companies aren’t being analyzed but competitive products are. Step 2, 3 and 5 are related to a company’s strategy, step 1 and 4 can be related to the competitive products.
As described above, the identification of the competitors has to be found in the generic competition. In order to identify the competitors, both the customer based orientation as the competitor oriented orientation are used. The customer based orientation identifies which products the customers see as a substitute for the product of Biddle. It will identify competitive products. The competitor based orientation will be based on top of that. Based on the experience and knowledge of managers within Biddle and outside Biddle the strong and weak points of the competitors are identified. Summarizing, this part is to identify the generic competitive products and not the competitive companies, because it is not the goal of this research to get an insight in each competitive company but to get an insight of how each competitive product competes with Biddle.
Competitive solutions concerning small cold room entrances 20% 25% 1% 12% 21% 3% 1% 8% 8% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
Normal door Slide door Double door Fast opening door
Wooden door Plastic door Open door Air curtain Dehumidifier
§5.2 Identifying the competitors
Because the competition is defined as generic, it is necessary to know which products are used nowadays as a solution for the entrances of the cold rooms.
This question was asked to the participants of the questionnaire. It is necessary to keep in mind that end users can have more than one solution, for example a wooden door in combination with a normal door.
They came up with the following solutions:
Figure 5.1 Competitive solutions concerning small cold room entrances
The solutions are divided into two groups:
1. Solutions that can function as a permanent solution of the small cold rooms, for example, when the doors have to be closed for a longer period like during the night. The products that belong to this group are a normal door, a slide door, a double door and a fast opening door. This possibility is called ‘the capability to function as stand alone equipment’.
2. A solution that is additional to the use of the solutions in group one. This type of solution is added to enable a high usage of the small cold rooms with the prevention of the problems related to a high usage. These are a wooden door, a plastic door, an open door, an air curtain and an iron door.
In general, especially the wooden door is a popular solution to enable a high traffic level in and out of the small cold room.
A division of these solutions to the segmentation will be made in Chapter 5.
§5.3 Analyzing the competitors
This paragraph covers the analysis of the competitors. Each type of equipment is going to be analyzed by using criteria that are based on the customer analysis. Because the main goal of this research is to get to know the customer needs and how these needs should result in a possible Biddle product. Therefore, it is more useful to determine to which level these kinds of equipment meet the demands of the customers.
In Chapter 4 the different kinds of problems that occur were identified, they were based on the end users judgments on different aspects concerning cold rooms.
The problems that could occur are: ¾ The forming of ice on the products. ¾ The forming of ice on the floor. ¾ The forming of ice on the ceiling
¾ The forming of mist when the doors are opened.
¾ A fluctuating temperature inside the cold room when the doors are opened. ¾ A decreasing temperature outside the cold room when the doors are opened.
Partly based on these problems, the users were asked to evaluate several aspects concerning the cold rooms. Now is determined to which level the competitive products meet those evaluations.
These aspects are:
¾ The possibility of open doorway working. This is to determine if the equipment is suited for a high level of usage. If it’s not, it will generally result in ice problems. ¾ The solving of ice formation on the products.
¾ The solving of ice formation on the floor.
¾ The solving of mist formation when the doors are opened. ¾ The reduction of energy costs.
¾ Maintaining a stable temperature inside the cold room even when the door is closed. The following aspects were excluded from this analysis:
¾ An air curtain should be small/silent; this was a particular question in the Customer Analysis to determine the need towards a Biddle product that doesn’t exist yet. Therefore, it will not be discussed at each competitive product. Should the size however be an issue, it will be discussed under ‘Miscellaneous’.
¾ The level of secretary; because this is company related and not product related, therefore not discussed here.
The following aspects were added to the list:
¾ The price of the equipment, because there a huge difference in the prices could lead to the use of equipment with a worse efficiency. To determine the price, a standard door size of 1 meter width and 2 meter height was used. The prices that are mentioned are without VAT.
¾ Can it be stand alone equipment or is it complementing equipment? For example, an air curtain isn’t stand alone equipment, because it has to be defrosted every day. Therefore, during the night, another type of equipment is used, like a normal door. ¾ Miscellaneous. Specific aspects that are not relevant for the other equipment are
mentioned here.
The analysis is mainly based on the interviews that were held with the sales representatives of Biddle, because most of the participants have several types of equipment installed.
§5.3.1 A normal door/slide door
A normal door for cold rooms works the same as a normal door in a house. A slide door works exactly as the name indicates, it slide to the side. The difference between the two is that for a normal door more space is needed right in front of the entrance to open the door and a slide door has to be placed in a wall where there is space on the side of the door to slide to. They are put together because the benefits and drawbacks are the same besides the positioning.
The possibility of open doorway working: No, there are not suited for open doorway
working. The free exchange of air will give to many problems.
The prevention of ice formation on the products, floor and ceiling: When a normal door
With a low entering level it will be the best prevention, but with a high entering level, ice problems will increase.
The prevention of mist formation when the cold room is opened: The same is with the
forming of ice, when the door is opened, there will be no protection against the forming of mist at all. With a low entering level, it will not be a big problem, with a high entering
The reduction of energy costs: When there is a high usage of the cold room, the cold
room will use a lot of energy because of the problems mentioned above in this subparagraph. With a low usage it will be less.
Maintaining a stable temperature inside the cold room: When the small cold room is
opened, the temperature will increase immediately. It is depending on how often the cold room is used, because when the cold room is just briefly opened, the increase will be hardly noticed.
Price of the equipment: The price of a normal door will be around €900,- and of a slide
door will be around €1.100,- (GasPack, 2005:website).
Stand alone: Yes, it is possible for a normal door or slide door to function as stand alone
equipment.
Miscellaneous: A slide door has some extra electrical and moving parts which require
maintenance.
§5.3.2 Double doors
Double doors are two doors in a sluice. The space between the two doors works as a buffer to the temperature difference. A person opens the outside door, enters the sluice, closes the outside door and opens the inside door. There is no free convection of air between the ambient side and the small cold room at any time.
The possibility of open doorway working: It gives no possibility of open doorway
working because it takes to long to enter a room. Every time someone enters the cold room, he has to open the first door, close the first door, open the second door and close the second door. This is not very practical if there is a lot of traffic going in and out of the cold room.
The prevention of ice formation on the products, floor and ceiling: It is a good solution
