Ice House America's Goal!

Taking one of life's essentials — and making it better.

Ice House America’s innovations iced the ice plant, froze out the middle man, and transformed one of life’s essentials — water and ice — into a high-quality product at the lowest possible price.

Many companies make ice, but IHA turned the retail ice industry upside down with superior engineering, manufacturing, and innovative ice vending technology. Today, ice vending is the most exciting, and fastest growing segment of the retail ice industry.

IHA’s reputation is built on promises kept with every vend, every day — keeping its promise of safe, hygienic, and reliable ice and water delivery systems utilizing the Healthwise filtration system. It distinguishes innovation with the SMARTICE remote management technology — requiring numerous manufacturing and engineering patents, that give every IHA operator a tremendous advantage over the competition.

Leading the Industry with Superior Process, Products and People

Today IHA is the largest manufacturer and owner/operator of ice vending machines in the world. They have produced 3,500+ ice vending machines — collectively generating more than 1 billion pounds of high-quality ice each year.

IHA’s 160,000-square-foot manufacturing plant has produced these machines worldwide — with a new machine installed every two to three days. Their fabrication and assembly process is modeled on best practices from the automotive industry, which ensures cost efficiency, production and quality control at every step. It also ensures that IHA’s machines are the safest, most reliable and most technologically advanced ice and water vending machines available.

IHA holds 5 U.S. patents and several international patents surrounding the ice storage and delivery process. These patents add value to the machines, improve quality and enhance the overall consumer experience.

Their greatest advantage to owners is providing access to the vast IHA network of experts: individuals who are a primary source of ideas, and advice that leads to innovative technology, tools, and manufacturing improvements. IHA employs teams of expert engineers, quality assurance reviewers, field technicians, parts support staff and technical support agents.

IHA’s success is built on new ice and water vending products and technology — opening doors to entrepreneurs by making ownership easier and giving consumers convenience and more affordable access to high quality ice and water. IHA technologies ensure consumers the freshest, safest, most hygienic, convenient and high value product on the market.

"c3controls adds more value with higher quality at significantly less cost."
— Manoj Tadhani, Director of Engineering at IHA

IHA has depended on c3controls since their first machine

Ever since Ice House America developed their first machine in 2004, c3controls products have been an integral part of their ice vending machines. Over the years, as IHA has developed many new products with different ice storage capacity and electrical specifications for different markets, they have continued to use the c3 components for all of their new products.

Ice House America believes safety, quality, reliability and cost are the most important elements for every vending machine they sell — and that c3 components offer all these features with no compromise. IHA uses c3controls’ 8-pin and 14-pin relays to ensure the success of its proprietary SmartIce Remote Management System that allows the operator to monitor, track and remotely control the icemaker and vending machines.

Recently, IHA made the transition from Siemens and Eaton brand Miniature Circuit Breakers to c3controls MCBs. The c3 MCBs are not only cost effective, but are also UL recognized and UL Listed. They feel that these components provide better value for their company as well as for their customers. In addition, IHA uses c3controls overload relays, contactors, relays, terminal blocks, push buttons, disconnect switches and marking tags.

“The 8-pin and 14-pin relays play an instrumental role in our proprietary Smartice remote-control management system feature”.
— Manoj Tadhani, Director of Engineering at IHA

Simplicity in design and reliability in extreme conditions

Ice House America likes the simplicity of design and easy installation of c3controls components — as well as the endurance and dependability that the c3controls products offer. Seven years ago, IHA used the 125 amp disconnect switch in their first single-phase ice vending machine — and the company has used the same disconnect switch for all of the new products developed since then.

IHA uses the c3 products for the internal machine control circuit, as well as for the outside of the machine for customer interface. Outside controls include product selection push buttons, which withstand all the external elements like temperature, humidity, rain, UV light and some cases of abuse from customers.

As Director of Engineering, Manoj Tadhani is acutely aware of any quality and performance issues in the machines they build. He knows some of the issues could be related to shipping and handling, while others could be a quality issue of purchased parts. It is not easy to troubleshoot the issue, when machines are shipped all over the country and the tech support team is located in one place. The fact that IHA has never had any issues with the c3controls devices they use has been valuable when dealing with their customers.

"Looking at historical data of product reliability, consistency in quality and performance, we decided to use the c3 components for all our new portfolio of machines.”
— Manoj Tadhani, Director of Engineering at IHA

Ice House America enjoys c3controls value added benefits

Ice House America likes their direct manufacturer relationship with c3controls and the extensive c3 product portfolio. Recently Manoj had a discussion with the sales engineer and the CEO of c3controls regarding the possibilities of using additional c3 products. He plans on increased engagement with his c3 sales engineer to learn more about the many current products, with emphasis on newer products. IHA wants to learn how they can incorporate additional c3 components into their new designs to provide better value for their customers.

Same day shipping from c3 is an important service that provides IHA parts promptly to satisfy their customers operational need, as well as to reduce downtime and maintain the ROI. With customers operating their machines as a business, downtime is simply not acceptable. When a part fails, the last thing IHA wants to tell a customer is that the part they need is not in stock and can’t be shipped for a few weeks. If there is any issue with supplier chain or surge in demand, c3's sales engineer always finds and offers an alternate intermediate solution.

The lifetime warranty on products that c3 offers is something that IHA has never had to use. They have not experienced a product failure or needed to replace any of the c3 components. IHA appreciates the advantage pricing offered by c3 and considers it a key factor in their relationship. Compared to other brands where multiple parties are involved, a direct relationship with a manufacturer like c3controls adds more value and higher quality at significantly less cost.

“Since the very first machine in 2004, c3controls products have always been an integral part of our machines.”
— Manoj Tadhani, Director of Engineering at IHA

Ice House America believes in c3controls products and support

The company not only advocates the quality, reliability and cost effectiveness of c3controls products, but has also recommended c3 to some of their suppliers.

Ice House America’s team knows that if they ever have questions or issues, the c3 sales engineer is available to help provide the information or assistance needed promptly. With the quality of the products and caliber of customer service offered by c3controls, IHA looks forward to a continued business relationship for years to come.

“After hearing how well c3 components and technical support have worked for us, one of our suppliers started using c3 relays just about a year ago.”
— Manoj Tadhani, Director of Engineering at IHA

Thanks to Ice House America

Many thanks to Ice House America’s Director of Engineering, Manoj Tadhani, for taking the time to discuss his experience regarding the culture and quality products offered by c3controls.

His testimonial about his buying experiences as a customer of c3controls serves as positive feedback for c3’s mission to make it ridiculously easy for customers to receive premium performance without the premium price. If you’d like to know more about Ice House America, contact Manoj Tadhani at manoj.tadhani@icehouseamerica.com — or visit their website at www.icehouseamerica.com.

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Handling Customer Concerns

Quality at c3controls includes our comprehensive follow-up service after the sale. In order to respond promptly to customers, c3controls has a quality process in place which includes immediate return and replacement of the product to keep our customers’ production up and running — as well as a comprehensive review of the product application to determine if the perceived issue is only present under certain conditions.

The goal of the quality process is to identify what specific issues the customer is experiencing with the product — including determining problems that are application specific and to prevent those issues from reoccurring in the future.

Advantage Pricing

We have complete control over our engineering and manufacturing processes, maintain lower overhead costs than our competitors, and offer our factory-direct business model. We offer customers a buying partnership that can save them up to 40% — and has helped our customers improve profitability and cash flow for more than 44 years.

Same-Day Shipping

At c3controls, we know how important it is to get your orders on time, every time. That’s why we offer Guaranteed Same-Day Shipping on any order for standard catalog items received by 6:00pm ET. Our customers enjoy peace of mind knowing they will get what they need, when they need it. A promise that we know can help you reduce inventory and save money.

Limited Lifetime Warranty

While other companies claim to offer the highest quality products on the market, at c3controls we guarantee it. We can ensure high quality because we have total control over every aspect of the engineering and manufacturing processes.

Quality that meets your exact requirements

Using our decades of experience, c3controls continues to expand our culture of ‘quality’ to design products that meet our customers’ challenges of today and tomorrow.

c3controls produces durable, well-designed electrical control products that meet global standards for quality and safety — and perform reliably even in the most punishing environments. Ranging from power and actuation to control logic to human machine interface to wiring/cable duct — c3controls offers products that perform the essential control functions that are at the heart of nearly every electrically operated machine and equipment.

For further details on our world-class products, call us today at 724.775.7926 or visit us at www.c3controls.com.