Sacmi, an all-round partner for the ceramic industry

At the forthcoming Tecnargilla in Rimini, Sacmi Group will be presenting its top of the range equipment for tile, sanitaryware and brick production.

In a 3,750 sq.m exhibition space in hall B1, Sacmi will be presenting its PH3200 tile press, equipped with a CRS rapid mould change device and CE90 movement carriage. This allows for a rapid mould change in a record time of 30 minutes and guarantees maximum flexibility in terms of both design and size, with ever smaller and diversified batch sizes and at the same time smaller warehouses. At its factory in Imola, the company will also be displaying an example of the new series of extremely high tonnage presses to be included in the Continua range, which now consists of around twenty fully-operational lines. Sacmi Molds & Dies will be exhibiting its CRS rapid change moulds, universal upper and lower bases and a new floating module created as the evolution of the traditional compensation system. In the grinding segment, the innovative RMC440 microsphere refining mill is capable of milling ceramic bodies to an extremely high degree of fineness with 30% greater efficiency than conventional ball and drum mills.

At Tecnargilla Sacmi Forni will be displaying three firing modules with different infeed widths (2850 mm, 3150 mm and 3850 mm) from the Sacmi Modular Line (SML). Rather than a simple single-layer tile kiln, SML embodies a new kiln concept, a modular machine that can generate any model of single-layer kiln (FMP, XXL, EKO, etc.) according to the chosen configuration. Along with the entrance width, the producer can also change the kiln length and introduce accessories without wasting materials and with very short line stoppages. Sacmi Forni is also presenting the new Hercules supervision and control system and the PL7-EKO self-recovering burner. Keratech, the Sacmi Group company operating in the field of ceramic rollers, will also be presenting two major new products for the firing sector: XXL rollers for a kiln with 3850 mm entrance width and a new roller with higher performance hot elastic modulus. In the field of dry decoration, two modules from the innovative DDD175 digital system will be displayed. Designed for controlled application of powders onto a ceramic substrate, it is able to adapt perfectly to the now well established Continua technology. IN.TE.SA, the group company specialising in digital decoration, will be setting up a dedicated area with customer presentations where it will be presenting its 706 and 1406 digital printers (second generation machines that use the Colora HD2 standard), two Colorscan digital plotters and the Crono colour management system for the pre-printing stages. For the storage and end-of-line stage, the group will be exhibiting the Nuova Fima EkoWrap packaging machine, an innovative type of wrap packaging system that uses two kinds of corrugated die-cut cardboard and a patented closure system to enable it to package large tile sizes. This combines considerable cost savings with the possibility of changing size in just a few minutes, reducing the quantity of stored cardboard and increasing the productivity of the sorting line.

The latest addition to the family of automatic inspection systems is the Surface Inspection Flawmaster 5GX/160, capable of controlling tiles up to 1.5 metres in width and 3 metres in length. Along with the wider range of inspectable sizes, the system offers considerable improvements in terms of increased inspection speed and ease of use. In particular, a number of automatic user settings have been implemented. Complete standard recipes are also available for each product type and defect and can be customised for any requirement.

Sacmi Imola will also be presenting an area devoted to the department supervisors, the collection of hardware and software for detecting the status of the various machines installed in the department and for monitoring and logging production. Alongside these are the Alarm Analyser for viewing and memorising alarms originating from individual machines, the Preventive Maintenance Organizer for managing and organising scheduled maintenance, and the Teleservice Internet Connection to receive real-time support from a Sacmi technician over the internet.

In the whiteware sector, Sacmi is also proposing two machines with innovative setups: AVB, the new and extremely flexible machine for the production of open-rim and wall-mounted WCs, capable of producing items with 2, 3, 4 and 5 mould parts; and ADS, with an extremely innovative robotised casting cell with tunnel pre-dryer which mounts extremely large moulds together with moulds for items such as consoles, washbasins, cisterns, lids and pedestals. Special attention is devoted to tele-service and remote connection to guarantee continuous support for casting machines. Two glazing cells will be installed in the exhibition centre, one with the GA2000 conventional robot and the other with the new GA OL (Off Line) robot specially designed to be programmed in off line mode. The division is also redoubling its efforts in the field of energy and resource saving in all application sectors. For this purpose it will be displaying dry glazing booths and illustrating the solutions adopted on the kilns of the sister company Riedhammer to save energy and reduce emissions. At the traditional seminar for whiteware customers held in conjunction with the opening of Tecnargilla on 24 September, this year devoted to "Efficiency and flexibility in a globalised market", the Sacmi Research Centre in Imola will be displaying two single-mould machines for the production of one-piece freestanding siphonic WCs with automatic rim and cistern gluing.

In the special Claytech section devoted to bricks and tiles (halls A5-C5), the group will be displaying a series of technologies designed to combine productivity with care for the environment, especially as regards optimisation of energy consumption. In the heavy clay sector, Sacmi will be presenting technological innovations for roof tile production including solutions for dryers and roller kilns with H cassettes. The new Technological Workshop at the Imola facility, entirely devoted to Heavy Clay technology, will be officially opened during Tecnargilla. On Wednesday 26 September, during the first Heavy Clay Open Day, a technical symposium entitled "New trends in the Heavy Clay sector" will be held for Sacmi customers.