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When Cooperativa Ceramica d’Imola started up its new Con-tinua+ line on 21 August this year, this marked the completion of the first step in a 40 million euro investment project approved by the Imola-based group for the three-year period 2017-2019. The new plant joins the two Con-tinua lines (the first version of the Sacmi technology) in opera-tion since 2011 and 2014. These lines are used for the production of unglazed tiles in a maximum size of 120x120 cm for the Imola and Leonardo brands but had reached saturation and were in-sufficient to meet a market de-mand that has really taken off in recent years.“We are not entering the large-size porcelain tile segment as a follower,” explained Chairman Stefano Bolognesi. “This latest in-vestment fulfils our need to raise

production capacity in the large size segment and to adopt in-novative pressing technology alongside traditional technology in order to further increase prod-uct size. The new line will produce tiles of 60x120 cm size upwards for the Imola and Faenza brands as well as large-size panels and slabs such as the 120x260 cm presented at Cersaie.” We spoke to Stefano Bologne-si during a visit to the histor-ic headquarters in Imola, a tour that included the company mu-seum housing ceramic master-pieces from the entire twentieth century and the imposing new showroom. Another example of post-industrial architecture, the showroom welcomed more than 2,000 guests during the week of Cersaie and strikes a perfect bal-ance between history, art and tradition on the one hand and

In the spotlight

Paola Giacomini - p.giacomini@tiledizioni.it

Coop Imola expands in the large-size tile segment

Stefano Bolognesi

In the spotlight

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innovation and modernity on the other.

Tile International: Mr Bologne-si, is the growth in extra-large ce-ramic tile sizes simply a natural trend amongst consumers or are we seeing a more structural change in the market? Stefano Bolognesi: Market de-mand is certainly shifting to-wards sizes of 120 cm and larg-er. Whereas 60x60 cm would

have been considered a large size just ten years ago, now it is seen as a minimum stand-ard size. However, demand is fairly segmented and ranges from 60x120 cm (in my opinion the central size) to 120x120 cm and higher, including large pan-els and slabs more than two or three metres in length. The in-creasing demand for custom-isation is also forcing the ce-ramic industry to abandon its

standardised approach and to develop proposals tailored to both the design world and the residential segment. At the same time, the specialist distri-bution market – at least in Eu-rope – is no longer prepared to pay warehousing costs but at the same time demands an immediate response. So yes, our reference market is chang-ing, but the Italian ceramic tile industry is also demonstrating

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In the spotlight

an ability to keep pace with the changes while exploiting both existing and latent de-mand. This is not a point of ar-rival but a work in progress. Tile International: Fragmen-tation of demand and a just-in-time response means rede-signing factories.S. Bolognesi: That’s right. The demand for ever smaller batches results in a need for plants with greater productiv-ity, flexibility and performance compared with the past. We need to establish harmoni-ous process flows, which can be done by digitising facto-ries in accordance with the concept of Industry 4.0. But there’s also another factor concerning the production of ceramic slabs and panels that makes it essential to re-program factories, and that’s the importance of post-firing operations. In the past, the

press and kiln were the ma-chines at the heart of a pro-duction line. Today, major in-vestments are being made in plants for finishing (cutting, honing and squaring) and surface treatments, process-es that add value to finished products and now tend to be performed in-house after being outsourced for many years. The greater number of operations performed post-fir-ing means that the batches produced by the press and kiln no longer correspond to the those arriving at the sort-ing line, but at the same time it is not feasible to create enormous intermediate stor-age units. This too is a chal-lenging step forward for com-panies, and one that must be approached judiciously and with full knowledge of the sit-uation.Tile International: Could you

explain that a little?S. Bolognesi: Today ceram-ic companies require great-er capitalisation than in the past. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, production lines are becoming longer due to the increased number of pro-cessing operations, making it necessary to optimise effi-ciency and plant manage-ment while taking advantage of the opportunities offered by digitisation. Secondly, there is a greater quantity of capital being invested in the market. And given that the fu-ture trend will be towards an on-demand approach to pro-duction, it will increasingly be necessary to invest more capital in factories and less in warehouses.Tile International: Could warehouses of semi-finished slabs and panels be a solu-tion?

S. Bolognesi: It’s possible, pro-vided economic sustainabili-ty is guaranteed. Tile International: In Italy and abroad we are seeing a proliferation of new facto-ries producing large-size ce-ramic tiles and panels. What in your opinion is the market’s absorption capacity?S. Bolognesi: There’s plenty of room for growth. I see that the Italian manufacturers are keeping ahead of their own market and have shown an ability to open up new are-as rather than limiting them-selves to saturating the exist-ing market. We will certainly see a sharp division in our sector between companies that choose to go down this road and those that do not. Tile International: What chal-lenges are still to be over-come in the production of very large sizes?

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S. Bolognesi: These highly innovative technologies have overcome many of the technological lim-itations of the early ver-sions such as the possibil-ity of creating textures. We must continue research into ceramic bodies and raw materials, and obvi-ously continue to focus on products, design and aesthetic finishes. Tile International: Which are the most dynamic markets today? S. Bolognesi: In gener-al all major markets are showing a positive trend, particularly Europe and the United States, al-though our expectations for the US market were perhaps not entirely ful-filled. The situation in Rus-sia is also not so nega-tive and we expect to see slight growth in 2017 with respect to 2016. The Far East is seeing double-figure growth driv-en by higher demand in China and Hong Kong, a trend that I think will con-tinue and strengthen in the long term. Cooper-ativa Ceramica d’Imola was one of the first Ital-ian ceramic tile manu-facturers to begin sell-ing its products in China 18 years ago in coopera-tion with a local partner. Our methodical, prag-matic approach has en-abled us to grow year af-

ter year and we are now the most widely sold Ital-ian brand in the Chinese ceramic tile market. An-other emerging market for Coop. Imola is India, a country where we are al-ready exporting our prod-ucts and in many cases replacing import shares previously held by China. Tile International: What about Italy?S. Bolognesi: Demand in Italy is fluctuating. Af-ter getting off to a very good start to the year in the first quarter, the fol-lowing months saw a slowdown. The overall re-sults are positive though in terms of both turnover and sales mix. Tile International: So 2017 has been a positive year. Are you satisfied?S. Bolognesi: We have worked hard in recent years and are now reap-ing the rewards. Not just in terms of recognition and market results: turnover is an important component but well-balanced financ-es are even more crucial in my view. In this respect we are pleased with our results. The rigorous finan-cial management we have followed over the three-year period 2014-2016 has enabled us to close the first half of 2017 with good core profitabil-ity and an EBITDA of 20%.

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