Sacmi, the revolution in the Ceramic Factory 4.0

More than 200 Italian customers took part in the conference entitled “Slabs Factory & Sacmi 4.0” held on 23 March in the Sacmi Forni headquarters in Salvaterra di Casalgrande.

Introduced and moderated by Giuseppe Miselli, Italian sales manager for Sacmi’s Tiles Division, the aim of the meeting was to present the Sacmi 4.0 vision: from the approach to designing plants and individual machines to handling and logistics, from advanced line supervisors to after-sales support.

Sacmi Group’s General Manager Claudio Marani commented: “4.0 is not just a slogan, it involves a radical rethink of the business and production process”. As Sacmi Imola Chairman Paolo Mongardi pointed out, this means above all offering the ceramic manufacturing sector “a new way of improving efficiency and competitiveness in international markets”.

Speaking at the event, Confindustria Ceramica Chairman Vittorio Borelli confirmed that the ceramic sector is deeply involved in this revolution, “as reflected by the substantial investments our companies are making in innovation, on average around 7% of turnover each year. A further contribution has come from the Government’s measures on the so-called “super-amortisation” incentives, a comprehensive plan for reviving investments and competitiveness based on digital transformation of the industry.”

Whereas until recently it might have sounded like science fiction, the changes introduced by industry 4.0 are now plain to see, and this includes the technological solutions developed for the ceramic industry which were described one by one by the Sacmi technical managers.

“Plant integration is a concept that Sacmi has been pursuing since the mid-1980s when the first continuous grinding supervisors were developed,” explained Gildo Bosi, R&D manager of Sacmi’s Automation and Special Pressing Division. “The H.E.R.E. (Human Expertise for Reactive Engineering) system presented at Tecnargilla 2016 is the latest step in this approach. H.E.R.E. consists of a series of modules that intervene in the process at a hierarchical level (machines, controls and PLC, combined department and factory supervision). This makes it possible to determine how an individual department, plant or even entire factory is performing in real time and take action where – and if possible before – criticalities arise.” Along with predictive maintenance, H.E.R.E. in general produces a performance index that allows a cost indicator to be associated with the state of health of the plant, anticipating deviations in production and maintaining the highest levels of product quality at all times.

The test bench for the Ceramic Factory 4.0 is the Slabs Factory, representing the world of large sizes and ceramic panels. In the field of traditional pressing, the company presented the brand new PH 8200 in the Imola series, equipped with CRS system and a completely new automation logic based on the Ethernet Powerlink communication protocol.

Andrea Bresciani, director of the Tiles and Extruded Products R&D Centre, discussed the pioneering role of Continua+ technology in putting into practice the industry 4.0 principles of intelligent forming and full digital decoration of large-format panels. Intelligent, because productivity is independent of size (up to 14,000 m²/g) and thicknesses (up to 2 cm or more); full digital in terms of both controls (through the new MDX 2000 system for automatic control of density and thicknesses at every point on the panel) and aesthetic effect (thanks to integration of the texture decoration belt and Sacmi Digital solutions for dry and wet decoration and with grits); flexible because there is no limit to the sizes that can be produced. “This means it is possible to design the product digitally and synchronise the various machines making up the line so as to develop products in accordance with an industry 4.0 vision,” concluded Bresciani.

But perhaps the most important aspect of the Ceramic Factory 4.0 is that of handling, end of line and plant logistics. “Automation and handling must be integrated into a single process management system,” explained Maurizio Bardi, managing director of Nuova Sima. “At Sacmi we have devised a new plant layout based on an ‘assembly to order’ logic, effectively creating a factory divided into two parts: the first produces and stockpiles semi-finished products as part of a ‘make to stock’ logic; the second, in keeping with a ‘make to order’ approach, takes warehoused semi-finished products and prepares finished products according to customers’ orders.”

Kilns are another segment in which Sacmi is working hard to offer revolutionary solutions in terms of performance, flexibility of use and adaptability to the new concept of ceramic factory. With this in mind, Sacmi Forni’s technical director Pier Francesco Vaccari presented the XXL kilns, including the brand new 3,850 mm width model capable of firing two panels up to 1600x1600 mm in size side by side. “A semiautomatic solution for helping the operator in the roller extraction and insertion stages is at the design stage,” he added.