In the Phase 1 project, we developed a business plan that will guide the future development and commercialisation efforts of EPIC (to be included in Phase 2 project). The assumed commercialisation strategy will take the product to the production stage – consisting of sourcing raw materials, transportation, and assembly, and finally to deployment. Our experience and expertise suggests that our container flooring solution has strong capabilities to revolutionise the container industry. We therefore want to use the SME Instrument funding as a platform to gain global recognition and become the emerging knowledge centre in eco-friendly, sustainable container flooring. The overall innovation effort is expected to take Norcomp to a new level of competitiveness and growth.
We are happy to conclude that during Horizon 2020 phase 1 our main goals were to;
• create huge interest among the 2 major customer groups was a success (shipping lines and the container leasing companies)
• receive an actual trial order was also concluded
We attended 2 trade shows for the container industry, one in Shanghai and one in Amsterdam, presenting our EPIC container floors.
When discussing with potential container customers we use 4 major USPs for using EPIC floors:
1. Proven lower maintenance and repair costs.
2. Keeping the same weight during the container lifetime.
3. Price neutral compared to wooden or bamboo floors.
4. Recyclable.
These points have enabled us to successfully convince a major shipping line, the French line CMA CGM, to order 80 containers with the EPIC container floors. The floors are produced out of European recycled plastics mainly from consumer waste in Germany. The recycled plastics come from different sorting plants located in Germany. The container frames without floors are now being produced in Shanghai. The EPIC floors will be installed in the middle of September 2018. The shipping line will evaluate our floor for some months before deciding whether they will use our EPIC container floor going forward. They have placed orders for more than 90,000 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit), This is described in the Phase 1 application on page 2. Containers are measured in twenty-foot equivalents (TEU).
While we have many potential users, our next significant challenge was to find a container producer. After discussions with a major container producer and with the help from our customer, a major shipping line, we were able to convince the largest container producer in the world, Chinese CIMC Group, to produce 80 containers. The CIMC Group manufacture between 1.5 - 2.0 million containers annually, this represents 50% of the containers produced globally. This is a key contact for our growth. It is important to note that container producers manufacture to the clients’ specification.
Our plastic floors were produced by SP Extrusion A/S, subsidiary of a major Danish plastic group in Denmark. The floors were manufactured according to our specification under our supervision. We are discussing terms for further cooperation.
The recycled plastics have been supplied free of charge by a major German company involved in sorting and supplying these type of plastics. At a meeting in June, they have expressed their sincere interest in further cooperation with us. We are currently finishing a letter of intent with them. They have confirmed that there are quantities of suitable plastics for our container floor project available. It is important to know that this type of very cheap plastics cannot be found in China.
