Anatolia enters the world of ceramic slabs with Sacmi

The new mega-plant dedicated to slab production has been fully operational since September 2023, equipped with Sacmi technologies, from the body preparation to the sorting department.

With its impressive new Sacmi-made plant, Anatolia makes a further step as one of the top Turkish ceramic players, with ambitions to develop and export top-of-the-range products to the European and American markets. The new factory - over 250,000 square metres entirely dedicated to the production of glazed and technical porcelain tiles - has been fully operational in Aliaga (Izmir region, Turkey) since early September 2023 and has been equipped with top Sacmi technology, from body preparation to sorting. The main feature of the plant is the high level of automation in all stages of the process. The main machines supplied by Sacmi include the MMC 092 modular mill and Continua+ PCR 2000, which are ideal solutions for the production of the 160x320 cm size and sub-sizes.

To fire the slabs, Anatolia has installed the 258m-long FMD "Maestro" kiln, Sacmi's advanced cutting-edge kiln design, with digital management of recipes and all firing parameters to optimise consumption. With high-efficiency burners, the FMD advances the market standard that Sacmi has already established with a modulated air-gas solution (precise control of the air-gas ratio for each individual burner ramp). In the digital set-up, it is not just the air and gas flow rate that are regulated, but their ratio, optimising the process by type of product to be cooked and by fuel mixture.

In the pursuit of lower consumption, the main focus remains on ensuring the best quality of the final product. With FMD, all parameters can be managed directly from recipe to panel. Once the appropriate air and gas flow rates for each type of recipe are saved, the same cooking cycle may be repeated at a later date, eliminating waste, variation in tones, and so on.

Downstream of the kiln, the finishing department was equipped with an avant-garde SACMI-BMR line which includes a squaring machine, a grinding machine, and the revolutionary Supershine finishing solution, which guarantees a very high aesthetic yield of the finished product.

Sacmi has also supplied the end-of-line machinery, which include the latest generation of Ekosort and Ekowrap hybrid solutions, used for sorting and packaging, in conjunction with the new Flawmaster vision system for precise, rapid, and accurate quality control based on self-learning algorithms.