Until now, the scope for individually packaged ceramic tiles and slabs ended with the 900/1200x1800/2000 size. Anything larger was picked and usually placed in crates or on stands. Until now, that is. Because thanks to a special “T” series packaging machine developed by Sacmi-Nuova Sima, manufacturers can now tray-package items as large as 1200x2400 mm.
This is a major step forwards for combined Sacmi-Nuova Sima end-of-line solutions, which can now handle formats as large as 1600x3200 and their sub-multiples. Sacmi is renowned on the market for its capacity to provide fast, integrated, fully automated sorting, packaging and handling solutions on a single line (already installed and tested with the global industry's top players). Now, Sacmi has brought the industry a step closer to the future by responding to specific requests from a number of customers who, after intense design work, have seen their facilities successfully equipped with the new solution.
At the core of this Nuova Sima proposal is the Flawmaster, the Surface Inspection system that allows accurate on-line control of all the dimensional (size, planarity), surface and colour characteristics of the product. Downstream, manufacturers can install the EkoWrap or EkoRoll, the revolutionary Sacmi perimeter packagers that give manufacturers cardboard savings of over 50% and boost efficiency. Then there is EkoSort; this new line stands out on account of a simplified sorting system that can be configured directly via the software and operate independently of size or thickness, with consequent minimization of format changeover times.
A new feature of the Nuova Sima solution is that it can, as mentioned above, extend the range able to be processed as "tiles" to the 1200x2400 size, even though these are actually huge slabs. This is thanks to the special T series packager, in turn designed for integrated downstream operation with the EkoSort stacker. All thus-packaged products – large formats and sub-multiples – are then sent to the single palletizing island where a combined system can, via a picker unit, position the boxes on pallets or, alternatively, transfer slabs to crates and/or stands via innovative suction cup tables. Lastly, counterbalanced LGVs (Laser Guided Vehicles) designed by Nuova Sima carry the various load types (pallets, crates, stands), taking routes that maximise logistical efficiency and safeguard the package.
Solutions of this type have already been installed by leading firms in Italy, Germany, Spain, Turkey and the United States. Currently the world's only company equipped to provide such cutting-edge end-of-line services, Sacmi has thus taken another step towards transforming large slab logistics, an essential part of the far-reaching 4.0 modernisation that is revolutionising ceramic manufacturing.