One of the world’s most advanced ceramic tile manufacturing plants has employed an Australian -manufactured pneumatic reticulation system to help double its capacity and safeguard its extensive automation systems against downtime.
National Ceramic Industries’ state-of-the-art tile manufacturing plant at Rutherford in the NSW Hunter Valley employs world’s best technology to produce up to eight million square metres of ceramic tiles a year, equivalent to 720 tonnes a day.
Creating dozens of new jobs and replacing imports by cost-efficiently supplying more than a quarter of Australia’s demand for floor and wall tiling, the huge plant installed an 800 metre Calair Pro-Pipe II ring main to feed production, processing and packaging areas.
The extensive new ring main — one of the largest in which Calair product has been involved in more than 8,000 applications — features Calair piping, jointing and system components throughout.
“One of the Calair system’s big pluses is the speed with which it can be brought back into service if anything does go wrong in the pneumatic system or something needs changing quickly,” said production supervisor Sarel Badenhorst.
“It’s not like steel — You don’t have to call in specialist trades and make an expensive emergency out of it. You can just cut into the Calair product and have things back to normal in 10-15 minutes.”
National Ceramics’ depends on its pneumatic system to power a highly automated production process designed to produce tiles at the most competitive prices possible.
These processes extend from automated processing of raw clay through to shaping, baking, finishing and packing and delivery of product from the automated packaging plant by laser-guided forklifts to the automated warehousing area.
Powered by three Atlas Copco GA75 Variable Speed Drive compressors for energy efficiency, the pneumatic system is maintained at 6.8 bar throughout the extensive network of Calair piping, which includes has smooth, non-corrosive internal bores to minimize friction and ensure ongoing energy efficiency.
Two compressors operate during normal production, with one kept in reserve and connected to a standby generator to maintain the system in the event of a power failure or other contingency. The system also incorporates strategically located non-return valves, so that individual areas of the system can be isolated from other production areas if a problem arises in one spot.
