by Andrea Serri22   Dicembre   2014

A road map for innovation in ceramic industry

Tecnargilla 2014 unveiled the latest ceramic industry innovations, which resulted in a discontinuity when comparing with previous years.

Tecnargilla biennial fair is an unmissable rendez-vous for ceramic operators willing to understand where the industry is going and which driving forces are lying below its development; all of this, at a global level. Last edition took place at the end of September, confirming once again the cultural leadership of Italian ceramic industry, where the latest ceramic products are interpreted at their best. Tecnargilla falls exactly in the same days as Cersaie, therefore raising an issue for those businessmen and professional operators wishing to visit both fairs.

Pervading and widespread
Innovative technological and system solutions (incremental and discontinuity ones) are available to a large park of companies of different sizes, operating in the equipment, raw materials and services departments. This great variety is extremely important both from a strategic and a structural point of view as it anticipates more elaborate and articulated and sophisticated ceramic tiles. Among the others, dry and wet grinding are most carefully watched: innovation in this field can increase competitiveness in the ceramic sector.

Complex integrated systems
While we are first attracted by appliances and machinery on display at the various stands, what is really on offer is complex integrated production systems. Yesterday it was a press; today it’s a high definition system for the dimensions of a ceramic slab alongside with reduced set up time; ceramic sufaces pre-cut in line with market requirements, with unvaried productivity; kilns provided with a heat recovery system; glazing and decoration integrated processes, alternated or consecutive; technologies and quality controls all along the production line; surface finishing systems. These are all solutions where the system complexity becomes user friendly to the production worker.

Productivity and flexibility
Performance- and productivity- driven plants, able to face plural markets with different needs; uncertainty in times for request; a large variety of factors at stake. High volumes generated, high variety of types: that’s Tecnargilla 2014 ceramic products main features. This is one of the most precious Italian talents; it therefore needs caring and careful developing. Thin layers and thickened slabs, totally smooth grip surfaces, small formats and large slabs (all of which is existing and operating in the Italian ceramic industry) are the real answer to the ‘flexible industrial production dream’, merging production line technology with commercial need for diversification in an efficient and effective way.

Sustainable development
Does a high volume industry always need big production and logistical spaces? Maybe not. Decoration lines with tens of applications stored up in smaller space and vertical store of raw material and final stock can both contribute to rationalisation of spaces. Can the industry which boasts the best BATs in the world further improve? Certainly so if grinding technologies make a step forward in the reduction of water usage; if nanotechnologies enhance combustion thermodynamic efficiency; if ventilated facades anchoring will increase the perceived level of security, aesthetics and installation speed.

See you at Tecnargilla 2016
This extraordinary effort of technological creativity will continue to be illustrated on the pages of Cer – il giornale della ceramica, whose renovated aim is to acquire a key role in the ceramic specialized press. Issue after issue will bring us to Tecnargilla 2016 – and let’s hope that by then Cersaie and Tecnargilla will differ in at least a day so as to allow operators to follow both.