“America’s Army: The Strength of the Nation”, is the motto of the Annual Meeting of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), currently taking place at the Washington Convention Centre (10-12 October 2011).

Kärcher Futuretech (KFT) is one of few German companies participating at this event.

KFT has two business projects with the US Army: Water Bottling and CBRN Decontamination.

For supplying its soldiers with fresh water in handy bottles, the US Army relies on water bottling systems from KFT. In cooperation with its strategic partner DRS Technologies, almost 7 million 1-litre bottles have already been filled with drinking water in the Camp Dwyer and FOB Delaram II bases. “At present, we have a total bottle production rate of 180,000 units per week in Camp Dwyer (which run five days a week in two shifts). With the commissioning of the fourth water bottling station which shall take place by the end of this year at the latest, our bottling systems will be able to independently supply the complete camp using our bottling systems“, stated Dr. Patrick Marcus, Head of the Camp Systems Department of KFT.

Dr. Marcus is looking forward to closing another important gap in the supply of drinking water in Afghanistan, where infrastructure is weak. Two further systems will be dispatched most probably in the first quarter of 2012, for operation at the FOB Shindand II base.

Drinking water bottling is increasingly turning into a true success story for Kärcher Futuretech. To-date, more than 65 million bottles have been produced using these systems.

In addition to the US Army, the British Army and the German Federal Armed Forces currently rely on these water bottling systems.

Apart from that, KFT received another delivery order for 811 M-26 Decontamination Systems from its US partner DRS ESI under the Joint Services Transportable Decontamination System Small Scale (JSTDS SS) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract valued at US$ 15 million. This contract was awarded by the US Army Contracting Command located at Natick, Massachusetts.

The reliable hardware components were designed for conducting hasty and thorough decontamination operations of non-sensitive military material, facilities and personnel that have been exposed to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) warfare agents/contamination or toxic industrial chemicals and toxic industrial materials (TICs and TIMs). Over 5,000 systems have been ordered over the life of this five year contract and fielded to US Army, US Marine Corps, and US Navy forces deployed around the world.

As Helmut Stelzmüller, Spokesman of the Board of Directors of KFT states, "Supporting our US military customers with the best decontamination hardware is rewarding for KFT. Our understanding of decontamination operations with the interface of hardware and decontaminants will enable KFT to continue to be the world leader for CBRN decontamination and hazardous mitigation. We are committed to supporting these M-26 systems over the service life expectations with value added logistics support and service.”