At the heart of Modena, the world-famous ceramic tile manufacturing region of Italy, is Century, a company with a reputation for producing extremely high quality floor tiles using the state-of-the-art technology and production processes, and with designs inspired by the latest décor fashions and architectural trends.  

Century is part of the Fincibec Group of companies which is proud of its ‘Made in Italy’ heritage. In addition, eco-sustainability of the entire industrial production process is the Group’s cardinal principal, which involves continually striving to use raw materials with low environmental impact, limiting the consumption of natural resources and dramatically reducing emissions.

High product quality is essential to Century – this is the essence of its brand reputation.  As part of an improvement project, Factory Director Alberto Corradini, together with the Glazing Line Manager Emanuele Farrarini, were looking to enhance the print uniformity of their digital printers specifically with the print bars using blue and brown inks. Coraddini and Farrarini consulted TecnoFerrari, manufacturer of their trusted Vivajet digital printer, who recommended the installation of the Xaar 1003 GS12C printheads into these two print bars.

“We use these print bars to print the blue and brown colours which are needed in many of the high-quality granite and concrete tile designs for which we are well-known,” comments Alberto Corradini. “Previously, print uniformity had been difficult to achieve but with the changeover to the Xaar 1003 GS12C printheads, we can see that it has significantly improved”.

An additional, and equally important, result has been the increase in production output. “Before we installed the Xaar 1003 printheads, whenever we needed to change to printing a new product, we had to spend time in fine tuning the printheads to achieve uniform print quality across the width of the tiles”, says Emanuele Farrarini.  “This can be quite a technical procedure and we had to depend on the expertise and quick response of the engineers at TecnoFerrari to manage the procedure.  Now with the Xaar 1003 we can achieve uniform print quality without requiring any fine tuning. This has led to an increase in production output of around 15-20%.”

Century, along with the two other Fincibec companies, Monocibec and Naxos, has built up a good working relationship with TecnoFerrari and uses a range of its production machinery throughout the three factories.  When looking to install new digital printers back in 2013, Century turned to TecnoFerrari and Xaar, choosing the VIVAjet printer together with market-leading Xaar 1001 printheads.

The third generation Xaar 1003 printhead, recently introduced by Xaar, improves on the earlier Xaar 1001 and 1002 printheads thanks to new technologies – XaarGuard and Xaar’s Tuned Actuator Manufacturing process. Together, these technologies deliver uniform print quality throughout a wide range of printing conditions, plus significantly increased periods between maintenance. The Xaar 1003 is designed to be fully backward compatible, so customers can easily upgrade and enjoy the benefits that this new printhead brings.

TecnoFerrari Account Manager, Maurizio Boni says “We advised Century to upgrade two print bars to the latest Xaar 1003 printheads. They were very quick and easy to install because they are fully backward compatible with the Xaar 1001 printheads previously installed. We are very pleased with this upgrade and are delighted that our recommendation has led to an increased production output for Century along with an improvement in print uniformity.”

Tile manufacturers still using either the Xaar 1001 or Xaar 1002 can upgrade one or more print bars to the Xaar 1003 very easily to benefit as Century has done.  To find out more, visit www.xaar.com/upgrade.