Project completed in record time. Alongside the PCR 2000, SACMI also provided a new kiln and dryers with advanced heat recovery systems for ‘zero fuel’ performance. The result: total process control, lower costs and consumption, more first-class products. For SACMI, then, a new customer on India’s strategic 1.1 billion m² /year market, which looks set to keep on growing. 

Market-leading Indian firm Motto has just installed and started up a new complete line for the manufacture of slabs and sub-sizes. At its heart lies a SACMI Continua+ with a PCR 2000 – the best-selling solution in the Continua+ family and the second such machine to be sold in India – for porcelain tiles as large as 1600×3200 mm and fired thicknesses from 6 to 20 mm.

Fully operational since early May at the plant in Morbi – the heart of India’s ceramic industry – this latest plant is emblematic of SACMI’s approach to this strategically vital 1.1. billion m² per year market that still has plenty of room for growth. By selecting SACMI, in fact, Motto has purchased not just machines of unrivalled technology but crucial ceramic production line solutions that result in ultra-high finished product quality and process efficiency.

Alongside the PCR 2000 (equipped with two APB powder feeders, which can be augmented over time, and a TPV unfired material cutting unit), SACMI has also supplied a 45.2 meter 5-tier EM5 dryer and a pre-kiln dryer, both designed for completely ‘zero fuel’ operation thanks to systems that retrieve heat from the kiln (RVE).

The plant also includes a latest-generation 201 meter long FCC kiln equipped with a very advanced energy saving system to minimize specific consumption and ensure, via heat retrieval systems, a steady flow of heat to the dryers.

“The immediate result”, points out Motto’s owner with great satisfaction, “has been a drop in both costs and consumption, accompanied by an increase in the quantity of first-class products”, thus meeting all the objectives the customer laid out during the preliminary stages of this SACMI project.

Note that Motto has done more than boost its ability to penetrate the high end of the market. Thanks to SACMI technology, in the form of integrated unfired/fired material cutting solutions, the company can also rely on incredibly versatile, efficient management of the sizes in its portfolio, such as 1200×1800 and 1200×2400 mm slabs.

The plant was up and running in record time. This was the result of close collaboration between the two technical teams and SACMI’s ability – despite the pandemic and the ensuing travel restrictions – to send technicians to the site and monitor every single stage of installation and testing. All the production tests were performed with raw materials and bodies already at the customer’s disposal, underscoring the outstanding versatility of the SACMI Continua+ family of solutions.