The research and development facility will have a range of environmental testing labs for the development of refrigeration, evaporative heat rejection and thermal storage technology, and it will incorporate state-of-the-art measurement and data acquisition capability.

The Delaware and Illinois plant expansions come on the heels of similar manufacturing growth at plants in Heist-op-den-Berg, Belgium, and Chiuro, Italy. The Milford and Paxton expansions will eliminate duplicate manufacturing facilities on the East Coast, transferring 150 jobs. As a result, the company will begin to transfer production out of the Baltimore plant in October, with complete phase-out scheduled for January 1, 2004.