Restaurant owners, commercial kitchen designers, architects, and mechanical consultants appreciate Ecocanopy’s precision, reliability, and product quality. Ecocanopy hoods have been installed nationwide in commercial kitchens, e.g., in restaurants, stadiums, hospitals, and schools.
Ecocanopy was established in 2007 and is a 100% Australian-owned and operated manufacturer. They operate in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, and have more than 30 skilled staff members with over 75 years of combined experience in commercial kitchen design, manufacturing, and installation.
By significantly reducing the risk of injuries in the kitchen workplace through automation using LINAK® actuators, the company was awarded the WorkSafe Invention of the Year for 2018 by Work Safe Victoria.
Reducing workplace commercial kitchen injuries with automation
Chefs and kitchen staff have suffered work-related injuries, such as falls and burns, as they often climb up on hot cooking equipment or ladders to access exhaust hood grease filters for cleaning.
Ecocanopy identified a need for a safely maintainable exhaust hood in commercial kitchens, as there was no other product like it on the market. Cleaning traditional exhaust hoods via climbing on ladders and hot kitchen equipment is dangerous and makes the workplace unsafe and inefficient. So, the Melbourne-based Ecocanopy team began designing the ezyAXS commercial kitchen exhaust hood from the ground up, using state-of-the-art 3D modeling and CNC manufacturing, coupled with automation for ease of operation. The goal of the design was to make the ezyAXS easy to use, reliable, and accessible to all market segments.
The commercial kitchen exhaust hood was equipped with LINAK electric actuators LA23 with a TR-EM Controller. The actuator facilitates smooth linear movement so that the exhaust plenum of the hood can be electrically lowered and raised with the flip of a switch.
Once the plenum has been lowered, kitchen staff can quickly and safely remove the filters, empty the grease drains, and thoroughly clean surfaces, while standing firmly on the ground. After hood maintenance, the plenum can be raised to its retracted position using the switch. The automation removes the need for using ladders and climbing on kitchen equipment, making the process significantly safer.
The LA23 was ideal for the ezyAXS exhaust hood due to its compact size. The actuators did not require a high IP rating as they are placed within the panels of the canopy, perfectly concealed, thereby ensuring an aesthetic and functional outcome.
Besides using LINAK actuators, the ezyAXS is an engineered solution hood capable of reducing exhaust airflows by up to 50%, thus minimizing kitchen running costs and increasing energy efficiency.
Local and global
The success of this application is not only due to design and technical automation solutions to reduce workplace injuries in commercial kitchens, but it is also a result of the strong relationships fostered with component manufacturing suppliers who have supported the project from start to finish, interacting closely with local, knowledgeable sales, technical, and after-sales support teams.
Akram Sulaiman, Ecocanopy’s project engineer, speaks about the design and manufacturing process:
“Our team is passionate about design and manufacturing, and it can achieve what it does thanks to our work environment. For this application, we looked to partner with a reputable component manufacturer like LINAK, which provides high-quality actuators, local customer service, and after-sales support.”.
The Future
Akram highlights what the future holds for Ecocanopy:
“We are working on ways to make kitchen exhaust hoods more energy efficient and safer to maintain. A substantial portion of this is achieved through automation. Sensors adjusting energy consumption, based on usage and safer ways to maintain products, will be the future of this industry.”
The LINAK team looks forward to being a part of this development and continuing to offer local support. For more information about how you can benefit from the linear actuator solutions from LINAK, please contact your local LINAK office. To find out more about Ecocanopy, you can visit their website.
