• Corporate
• TWENTY-SECOND PART OF THE TREATISE ON DRYING AND FIRING

In this twenty-second part, you will find chapter 2.9 of the treatise on firing:

Chapter 2.9: Tunnel kilns.

We hope it will be of interest to our readers.

• BERALMAR HOLIDAY SCHEDULE

As is customary in Southern Europe, BERALMAR's workforce will take most of their holidays in August. For this reason, we wish to inform our customers, suppliers and friends that during the month of August, activity at the BERALMAR facilities in Terrassa will follow this schedule:

• Week 32 (3-7 August) Low activity→: approximately 40% of the workforce.

• Week 33 and 34 (10-21 August) Minimal activity:→ customer service hotline and supply of urgent spares

• Week 35 (24-28 August) Low activity→: approximately 40% of the workforce.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this reduced activity may cause. Starting Monday August 31 BERALMAR will return to normal levels of activity.

• INTERVIEW WITH RAMON SARIÓ IN THE “TÉCNICA CERÁMICA” MAGAZINE

The Colegio de Gestores Administrativos de Cataluña's magazine has published its latest interview with the Managing Director of BERALMAR, Ramon Sarió.

In this interview Ramon Sarió shares his experience of the internalization process at BERALMAR, which in the last 20 years has extended its business from basically the Spanish market to 50 countries, with exports accounting for 95% of its total sales.

According to Sarió, the most important aspects of an industrial company's internationalization are:

- Having a good product.

- The right moment. starting the internationalization process when the domestic market is working well, not when it is a matter of life and death.

- Finding the right distribution channels for each market.

- Having flexible and adaptable human resources.

- And above all a lot of patience, as the results take time to appear.

The internationalization process represents a great effort in many ways but the results more than make up for it. An internationalized company is a much stronger organization: this is due to the diversification of the market risks and the growth opportunities, the development of knowhow in all senses (technological, commercial, strategic, cultural, etc.), reaching all the company's departments through constant exposure to many different contexts and inputs.

• FP DUAL, A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT

Graduation ceremony

Jesús Merenciano (left) and Josep Roca (right)

On 1 July at the Palacio de Congresos de Cataluña, the graduation ceremony was held for the second year of the Formación Profesional Dual de Cataluña (Dual Occupational Training) course, which combines training with full-time placements in companies, so that graduates start their professional careers with first hand experience of the labor market.

The graduation ceremony for the 900 students from 62 centers of education was attended by the Minister of Education, Irene Rigau, who thanked to 200 companies, including BERALMAR, participating in the FP Dual program for their support.

In the case of BERALMAR, two students were hired in this program. Jesús Merenciano (22), who studied Industrial Automation and Robotics at the Instituto Palau Ausit in Ripollet and who joined the Electricity Department, and Josep Roca ( 21), who studied Mecatronics at the Instituto Lacetània in Manresa, and who worked in Mechanical Manufacture.

BERALMAR has assessed these programs very positively.

• News and Accomplishments
• COMMISSIONING OF A NEW FACTORY IN ALGERIA

First car in the new TIMADANINE line, with no broken parts.

First truck loaded with material from the new factory.

Location of the new factory in the middle of the Sahara desert.

BERALMAR has just commissioned a new factory in Algeria, in the city of Adrar. This is the TIMADANINE 2 factory, which, as its name indicates, is this manufacturer's second production line. The first line, with 250 tons/day of block production, was also supplied by Beralmar in 2010. In this case however, the new line just commissioned is of a very different size: 900 tons/day of various formats of ceramic blocks.

BERALMAR’s supply for this new production line consists of:

- Cutting mechanisms.

- Loading of drying racks by robots.

- MESTRAL semi-continuous dryer.

- Unloading from dryer and stacking of cars by robots.

- PRESTHERMIC-E model tunnel kiln.

- Destacking by robots.

- Pallet formation and packaging mechanisms.

Obviously, the fuel used in the kiln will be natural gas which is abundant and cheap in Algeria.

The commissioning was a complete success and the first car came out without any broken parts and with the expected quality.

The factory is in the middle of the Sahara desert, 1400 kilometers from the coast and the climate is of course extreme, temperatures normally rising to 50ºC in the summer.

This is the 6th factory supplied by BERALMAR in Algeria and, as we said, the second one for this customer, whom we thank once again for the confidence it has shown in BERALMAR.