Oshkosh opens third office in China
Oshkosh Corp. a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of specialty vehicles and vehicle bodies, has opened an Asia Procurement Center in Shanghai, China, as part of its global growth strategy.
Oshkosh Corp. also has offices in Beijing and Hong Kong, which illustrates the company’s outlook for continued strength in its expanding global business.
"Aggressive international growth leads our business strategy. Opening a procurement office in Shanghai allows us to support our global manufacturing efforts by leveraging a local supply of parts, which enhances our long term competitiveness and strengthens our leadership position in the markets we serve," said Robert Bohn, chairman and chief executive officer of the company. "Broadening our global footprint with local offices increases the scale of our operations, which is key to fueling our future growth."
The company currently has manufacturing facilities in 11 countries and additional service operations in 16 countries.
Port Washington manufacturer to expand
Molded Dimensions Inc. plans to build a 24,955-square-foot building, with 20,604 square feet of industrial space and 4,351 square feet of office space, on its existing property at 701 Sunset Road, Port Washington. The company engineers and molds custom rubber and polyurethane mechanical parts for OEM and aftermarket industries. The new facility will be used for polyurethane part manufacturing and the company’s existing facility will be used for rubber part manufacturing.
Madison company partners with Shell to develop new bio-gasoline
Madison-based Virent Energy Systems Inc. has launched a joint research and development effort with Shell Oil to convert plant sugars directly into gasoline and gasoline blend components, rather than ethanol.
The collaboration could herald the availability of new biofuels that can be used at high blend rates in standard gasoline engines. Such a fuel could potentially eliminate the need for specialized infrastructure, new engine designs and blending equipment.
Virent’s trademarked BioForming platform technology uses catalysts to convert plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules like those produced at a petroleum refinery. Traditionally, sugars have been fermented into ethanol and distilled. The new biogasoline molecules have higher energy content than ethanol (or butanol) and deliver better fuel efficiency. They can be blended seamlessly to make conventional gasoline or combined with gasoline containing ethanol.
The sugars can be sourced from non-food sources such as corn stover, switch grass, wheat straw and sugarcane pulp, in addition to conventional biofuel feedstock like wheat, corn and sugarcane.
The companies have so far have agreed to collaborate for one year on the research. According to Virent, the BioForming technology has advanced rapidly, exceeding milestones for yield, product composition and cost. Future efforts will focus on further improving the technology and scaling it up for larger volume commercial production.
Dr. Randy Cortright, Virent’s co-founder, chief technical officer and executive vice president, said, "Virent has proven that sugars can be converted into the same hydrocarbon mixtures of today’s gasoline blends. Our products match petroleum gasoline in functionality and performance. Virent’s unique catalytic process uses a variety of biomass-derived feedstocks to generate biogasoline at competitive costs. Our results to date fully justify accelerating commercialization of this technology."
Virent has 68 employees in a state-of-the-art catalytic biorefining development facility in Madison. Virent has exclusively licensed the technology from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
