【Interview】The Vision of The Ceramic Machinery Giant In 2022

05 May 2022/CTW

Mr Claudio Facchini was invited to CTW NEWS CHANNEL, who is the general manger of SITI B&T in China, of which is one of the giants of ceramic machinery in the world.  The following is the detailed conversation.


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CTW: It's great to have you on our show. Some people in the industry may know you very well, while some may not so familiar to you. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?

Claudio Facchini: I'm from Italy, I have a long experience in the ceramic industry. I've spent about 28 years already in this field and most of this time was in China or in East Asia. So I have longer knowledge in the industry.


CTW: More than 20 years, you must have a lot experience and insights to share with us. So what's your opinion about the development of ceramic industry in 2021?

Claudio Facchini: 2021 was a year of recovery after the pandemic near 2020. So we have seen coming back of big demand and production output. We have seen this in America. We have seen this in Europe, in Middle East and in general everywhere. In China, we have observed the exponential growth of slab production, which is very particular to China.


CTW: So what's your opinion about the 2022?


Claudio Facchini: 2022 would be a year of Challenge is already very clear that is a Challenge year because many things have changed very fast. And Europe is coping with some difficult problem that is to satisfy high request, high demand but with the shortage of materials. China is that I see that the restructure of the industry is taking place and is the process that would be more importantly in 2022.


CTW: So how much does the Russia and Ukraine conflict affact the cost of ceramic production in different production regions?

Claudio Facchini: This is a problem that is unfolding right now. As you know, in the Europe, in Italy and Spain, the most important producers, raw materials,  especially clay is from Ukraine. And natural gas comes from Russia, mostly from Russia. Suddenly, there is shortage of raw materials. There is risk of loss of use of the reliablity of gas. So the producers in Europe are trying to find a solution, but this will clearly increase the costs,also required to adjust the technology. 


Raw materials from Ukraine, clays from Ukraine, have always been very stable and the Italian industry, especially in the body preparation departments have developed very stable and constant technology thanks to the use of this raw materials. So our customers in Europe will have to find the new sources coming from other countries. This will required to adjust their composition or the technology ceramic body formulation. 


CTWSome ceramic peers believe that China's low-end products will depend on imports in the future. What do you think?


Claudio Facchini: I think this would be a very big structural of change. And it's possible that would happen, but certainly not in a very short time. It is also true that very inexpensive products are more frequent from other regions, especially from other regions of Asia. And they might attend to take the place of Chinese products but transportation costs now are so high that is difficult to think of this as a possible development in a short time.


CTW: What do you think of the competitiveness of the major production regions in Asia?


Claudio Facchini: In China, we observed that there is a necessity to handle the increasing costs, the incresing costs of personnel and the increasing costs of fuel. As far as fuel is concerned, recently most factory have converted to natural gas, but the experience is not very established, very old, so good savings can be achieved in this regard with fuel cost. For personnel, China is always prefer the solution with the large use of labor and also direct production lines from press to kiln. Now they will have to look for other solutions and find some technical solutions for automations and storage. In a way that they will find that there are solutions in similar direction as Europe had a few decades ago.


CTW:  BT has been a leader in automation since 80s. Right?


Claudio Facchini: Yes. It 's a part of our DNA. The automation is the core of the BT company. We have very efficient solutions to promote in China. This issue here is that for China production management requires a change of mindset, which is not easy. And I think this will come when new generations step into the management of the factory.


CTW:  Maybe in the future we may probably will release more attention on automations as the labor costs are rising.


Claudio Facchini: Yes, labor cost is increasing, there is also some shortage. As I said, it's really necessary to improve efficiency by adding some machines for automations. 


CTW:  How about the competitiveness of other regions in Asia?


Claudio Facchini: Okay, other regions in Asia we have seen India expanded very, very fast. We know that the political environment,especially for export, the environment has changed a lot. We know the exchange rate for RMB now is difficult to push export. And together with other factors, this is helping regional industries to grow. We can observe this in Southeast Asia, countries like Indonesia, they have full output now and other countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh are coming up very quickly and we think that the expansion of the industry will be quite stable, and will continue to grow in these countries.


CTW:  What are the goals of SITIB&T in 2022?


Claudio Facchini: For SITIB&T China, the goal is to build a strong team and to make the industry feel we can be the reliable partner, particulartily not only on machines. The strength of our group is to focous on the finished product. So everything from the equiment,technology and the finishing of the products. 


CTW: The rising gas price has driven numbers of China's ceramic players to suspend production in the last couple of months. And we have learned that SITI's latest technology for kilns could save the use of natural gas up to 30%. Could you please briefly introduce the advantage of this technology?


Claudio Facchini:  Yes, because of our experience in the Italian industry, we have developed technologies for efficient use of natural gas, natural resources. In particular, we have one top of the range of kiln that has a design implementing all the most advanced solutions for energy saving. In particular, the use of our patented Titanium burner. And altogether this kiln can save up to 30% of fuel consumption.


We also have a solution for the renewal,for the regeneration,for the upgrading of existing machines. With a very simple solution,we just have replacement of burners with our patented burner called the Vulcan. And this is already a very efficient way to save. We have some customers now in China that are saving already 15% of the fuel. 


More excellencies to be continued...

On the next video Claudio Facchini, general manger of SITI B&T China will share more information about the development of porcelain slab in 2022 around the world. 

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