Sacmi recently organized a conference focusing on innovation, technology and savings that gathered more than 260 people from 43 different countries. “Ceramics: Your Future Seen from Here” was arranged for Sacmi customers and offered a unique opportunity for an up-to-date overview of the Sacmi Group’s latest developments for the tile industry.

Alex Murphy, a researcher from Asian Ceramics, presented an analysis of growth dynamics within static economies, with particular emphasis on China. The conference also examined Sacmi’s latest proposals for facing up to the challenges of the future, especially those related to output flexibility and energy savings.

To compete on the globalized ceramic tile market, it is becoming increasingly necessary to have a wide product range with numerous sizes and decorative solutions and, at the same time, an output set-up that contains costs. Sacmi’s plant engineering proposals for maximizing output flexibility are reportedly visible in the recent introduction of lines for large-size porcelain tiles; these provide various advantages, such as ease of management, the higher value of the attainable products, the possibility of producing modular sub-sizes via cutting without having to change the die and less need for finished product storage facilities.

Sacmi’s range of large-size tile manufacturing solutions was illustrated by Andrea Bresciani, Sacmi Imola’s Technological manager, in his presentation “High Flexibility in the Production of Tiles and Large Ceramic Slabs: New Plant Proposals.” The talk spanned from traditional lines with the PH10000 high-tonnage press and fast die changeover to the Continua line and the all-new Continua+, which is the new Sacmi roller-compaction-only technology that lets manufacturers produce ultra-large sizes at high productivity levels.

Davide Medici, managing director of In.Te.Sa., Sacmi’s digital specialist, gave a talk entitled “Glazing and Decoration in the Digital Era: an Integral Process,” which discussed the latest innovative digital decoration technologies, such as dry digital decoration, digital glazing and inkjet decoration.

Andrea Avallone, managing director of Sacmi Forni, presented “The EKO Kiln: Plant Evolution,” which analyzed the energy-saving advantages to be gained with the Eko kiln, a machine featuring technology that reportedly modifies fume flows inside the kiln to cut fuel consumption while improving output quality, thus introducing a radical and innovative transformation of the traditional tile firing process.

The conference ended with a visit to the Sacmi plant, where participants could see the EkoWrap and EkoRoll packaging machines in action. Also on display was the COLORA HD BLACK digital printer, the most recent evolution of the COLORA machine series that, thanks to the installation of up to eight color bars, reportedly provides an outstanding response to the digital decoration needs of the ceramic industry. Visitors also saw a preview of the prototype of the new COLORA HW printer, reportedly the first machine in the world for the application of water-based ceramic glazes.

For more information, visit www.sacmi.com.