Ceramics Industry
ECTS MEETS IN ITALY

Corporate
BERALMAR IS INVITED TO THE WÜRZBURG CONFERENCE (GERMANY)

News and Accomplishments
NEW FACE BRICK STACKING LINE IN PALAUTEC (GUADALAJARA, SPAIN)

ECTS, the working group comprising the main European suppliers in the ceramics industry, met on 24 and 25 October in Vicoforte (Piedmont, Italy) for its biannual meeting, this time with BONGIOANNI MACCHINE and BONGIOANNI STAMPI as hosts.

The meeting began on Thursday with a detailed and interesting visit to the facilities of the hosts in Fossano and continued with a visit to the "Regina Montis Regalis" sanctuary of Vicoforte, which has the largest elliptical dome in the world, in which an association dinner was then held. The mutual understating between its member companies, as well as the strengthening of personal relationships between the key people of these companies are two of the main service that ECTS provides to its members.

On Friday the group held its meeting, with several items on the agenda including a discussion, which we can publicly disclose, about certain aspects of the next two ceramic symposiums in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Hanoi (Vietnam) on 5 and 7 November respectively. BERALMAR will participate in these symposiums and we will inform you of them through this newsletter.

The meeting was also used to re-elect Miquel Moix as president of ECTS for the next three years.

ERALMAR has been invited to give a presentation at the WÜRZBURGER ZIEGELLEHRGANG, which will take place between 3 and 5 December in Würzburg (Germany).

The Würzburg conference has been organized since 1961, and with usually more than 200 attendees representing almost all of the German brick and tile manufacturers, it is the most important annual industry event in Germany. It is promoted by the Bavarian and German ceramists’ federations.

In the words of the organization itself, "the main task of the WÜRZBURGER ZIEGELLEHRGANG is to promote knowledge transfer to constantly improve the production technology of the natural product and train those responsible for the design of bricks both in production and in research".

The location of Würzburg in central Germany

The three intense days of conferences will feature 24 technical presentations and a visit to a tile factory.
The reason for inviting BERALMAR to the Würzburg conference is our experience in the use of biomass in the drying and firing processes, which is more important than ever in the current context.

See you in Würzburg!

BERALMAR has just successfully commissioned a new mechanism for PALAUTEC, in Chiloeches (Guadalajara, Spain).

PALAUTEC is one of the most renowned face brick manufacturers in Spain and has entrusted BERALMAR to design a new programming system for setting material on kiln cars.

An ideal setting is one that distributes the pieces on the cars for optimal firing in the kiln, something which setting mechanisms are not always best suited to doing. If we add variety of product (and therefore different setting patterns) and decorative formats of the quality of PALAUTEC’s clinker and face bricks, this becomes even more difficult.

This project sought to design a programming system that met a series of criteria:

• Flexibility when configuring the types of settings, for all formats.
• Gentle treatment of the material to avoid chipping, increasing the quality of the final product.
• Increase of the line’s production.

The commissioning of the equipment has been a success and the desired productivity has been achieved in all formats. The solution implemented by BERALMAR has achieved a completely flexible separation between pieces which is easily configurable using a touchscreen, with a programming design that prevents any type of damage to the material.

It should be noted that the control system of the installed mechanisms uses BERALMAR’s new system of intuitive interfaces which are easy to learn and use for the operator.

We hope to continue collaborating in the future with PALAUTEC in the field of automation, as we have been doing for years in other areas.