Advanced technology and plant engineering for a new facility that will be producing a full complement of porcelain tiles. Sacmi reinforces its strong partnership with one of the world’s largest ceramics’ manufacturers.

One of the largest ceramics’ brands in the world, RAK Ceramics produces 110 million square metres of tiles, 5 million pieces of sanitaryware, 24 million pieces of porcelain tableware and 600,000 pieces of faucets per year at its 17 state-of-the-art plants across the United Arab Emirates, India, Bangladesh and Iran. At its production facility in Bangladesh, RAK Ceramics recently started up an all-new plant, an industrial gem producing 12,500 square metres of tiles a day, all fully controlled with Sacmi technology.

Successful testing and production at the new plant began in Q1 2016 and this latest plant is dedicated to the manufacture of technical porcelain floor tiles and wall tiles for the thriving local market. The added capacity brings the total output of RAK Ceramics’ Bangladesh operations to 25,000 square metres a day, thus reinforcing its leadership position locally in the quality ceramic products sector.

The new production facility – located 60 km from the capital Dhaka – consists of an MMC 092 modular mill, designed to provide energy savings of up to 40% compared to traditional drum mills. Downstream is an ATI 110 spray dryer, also engineered and supplied by the Sacmi Impianti division, flanked by two MTD 340 mills.

The heart of the plant is the pressing department. This consists of no less than three PH 5000L presses (with an inter-column clearance of 1750 mm) that feed into two five-channel EMS driers with an effective load width of 2850 mm and a length of 22.4 metres. RAK Ceramics has chosen this type of high tonnage press, together with very high-performing driers, in order to focus on manufacturing all the variants of medium-large porcelain tiles (technical and glazed) that are in high market demand.

Sacmi has also supplied two inkjet digital decoration machines developed and built by Intesa; these join numerous other decorating solutions already supplied to the RAK Group and there are now a total of 14 Sacmi-Intesa decoration machines installed in their plants worldwide.

To demonstrate its capacity to act not just as a machine supplier but also – and above all – an all-round partner for the implementation of “turnkey” systems and services, covering everything from development of the graphic image to production and storage of the decorated slab, Sacmi has also provided RAK Ceramics’ Bangladesh production facility with 2 sorting lines designed by Nuova Fima, the group brand specialising in the design of automated end-of-line solutions. Completing the order there is, upstream, the necessary plant for the department where glaze grinding and concentrated colour preparation take place. For the firing department, Sacmi has supplied an all-new 153.3-metre single-channel FCC 2950 kiln equipped with advanced systems that recover cooling air and then channel it towards the combustion zone to optimise and reduce gas consumption.

The completion of this installation in Bangladesh reinforces the long-standing partnership between Sacmi Imola and RAK Ceramics, which involves not only the Group’s many production facilities on several different continents but also their other core businesses of sanitaryware and tableware (RAK Porcelain).