LONG BEACH, Calif. — Whenever outside temperatures went up, Paddock Imports, an independent Mercedes, BMW and Audi service center in Denver, Colorado, had a problem keeping the automotive technicians in their repair shop cool. As the heat and humidity increased, productivity plummeted.

Fortunately, the company found a cost-effective solution in MovinCool® portable spot air conditioners. The compact, self-contained units are made by DENSO Corporation, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of automotive parts and components.

“Especially when we were working on cars with hot engines, it could get like a sweatbox in there,” said Doug Paddock, the company’s owner. “The technicians were really suffering, and their efficiency would drop.”

The large size of the shop, with 16,000 square feet of floor space and 27-foot-high ceilings, made installing central air conditioning cost prohibitive. Instead, Paddock tried opening the shop’s bay doors and using drum fans. “The fans just moved the hot air around,” said Paddock. “We also considered portable evaporative coolers, but with the large space, it wouldn’t have been practical. Plus, there would have been the added humidity to deal with.”

Then, as luck would have it, WorldPac, a major distributor of original equipment automotive replacement parts, added MovinCool portable spot air conditioners to its Professional Tools and Equipment program. As part of WorldPac’s introduction of MovinCool to its customers, Mario Recchia, senior vice president of WorldPac, invited Paddock to see a demonstration at an upcoming trade show. 

Initially, Paddock wasn’t impressed. “I have to be honest,” he said. “When I first saw the MovinCool unit I was skeptical. It didn’t look like it could do much. But within about 30 seconds after it was turned on, I was sold. I could feel the huge volume of cold air it delivered right to a specific area. I was also impressed that MovinCool is made by DENSO. I was already familiar with DENSO’s quality from their auto parts, so I was confident their MovinCool systems would be reliable.”

Paddock ordered three MovinCool Classic Plus 14 models. Installation consisted of just rolling the units into place and plugging them into an ordinary 115-volt outlet. Each spot cooler has two cold-air ducts, so a single unit can cool two service bays.

“The difference is tremendous,” Paddock said. “The MovinCool units reduce the temperature in our work areas by 20 degrees or more. They also remove moisture from the air, so there’s no humidity problem. I can’t quantify the precise increase in productivity — although it is significant — but the improvement in morale alone is worth it.

“Because of the type of cars we work on, we pride ourselves on having the latest technology and the right tool for the job. And now MovinCool is another one of those tools.”

MovinCool, which has pioneered the concept of workspace spot cooling since the 1980s, offers portable and ceiling mount air conditioning systems for many different applications. For more information, visit www.movincool.com.  

DENSO Corporation, headquartered in Kariya, Aichi prefecture, Japan, is a leading global automotive supplier of advanced technology, systems and components in the areas of thermal, powertrain control, electronics and information and safety. Its customers include all the world's major carmakers. Worldwide, the company has more than 200 subsidiaries and affiliates in 38 countries and regions (including Japan) and employs nearly 140,000 people. Consolidated global sales for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, totaled US$39.8 billion. Last fiscal year, DENSO spent 9 percent of its global consolidated sales on research and development. DENSO common stock is traded on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges. Currently, in North America, DENSO employs more than 17,000 people at 33 consolidated companies and affiliates. Of these, 28 are manufacturing facilities located in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In the U.S. alone, DENSO employs more than 14,000 people in California, Alabama, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, Arkansas and Pennsylvania. DENSO’s North American consolidated sales totaled US$7.9 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014.