Successful projects in Latin America strengthening the presence of Sabo S.A. on the market

In the scope of this mission, Sabo S.A. is strengthening its presence in all Latin American countries by creating a strong and dedicated team of experienced technicians to support and develop the heavy clay industry in this region. Over the past ten years, Sabo S.A. has provided solutions in existing brick plants focused on improving the energy efficiency of kilns and dryers, developing modern automation systems and increasing overall productivity.

To cultivate this market more intensively and support the heavy clay industry in Latin America, a subsidiary has been established in Brazil.

Brazil: Cerâmica Incargel

At Cerâmica Incargel (Brazil, São Paulo, Itu), Sabo has supplied an automatic line for setting and unsetting structured and hollow bricks, as well as a system for the automatic movement of kiln cars, and automatic control of a new tunnel kiln with a Scada system.

With this investment, Cerâmica Incargel is replacing two movable kilns, several circular kilns and a number of manual handling operations. The new production capacity of 400 t/day in two-shift operation is enabled with the automatic loading and unloading system for the new tunnel kiln. The setting machine is connected to the unloading system of the existing dryer. It rotates the bricks and sets these in pairs to form product packs optimized for the kiln cars. A robot with 700-kg lifting capacity, one of the largest in the Brazilian heavy clay industry, uses a gripper to load the kiln cars. Another robot of the same type unloads the kiln cars and forms the saleable product packs on wooden pallets. The complete system for loading, unloading and automatic movement of the kiln cars is operated by only two operatives, so that the company is able to drastically reduce labour costs.

The investment in a high-tech Scada system enables optimization of the firing conditions, control of the firing quality and a reduction in energy consumption. The new Scada system is connected with temperature sensors and inverters for the fans, thereby improving efficiency. It delivers information on the conditions in the kiln in real time and controls automatically the set parameters for control of the burners and fans. The system can display the kiln data on a monitor or transfer it to a smartphone. This enables the owner of the company to control the performance of his plant anytime from anywhere.

With these solutions, Cerâmica Incargel has been able to lower its operating costs and improve the quality of its products as well as its production efficiency.

Ceramica Livramento in Brazil

At Cerâmica Livramento (Brazil, Teressina), an automatic handling system for clay roofing tiles was installed for loading and unloading of the dryer cars.

Implemented is a state-of-the-art, yet very simple automation system that is easy to operate, requiring minimum maintenance and with a high production capacity. At the core of this solution are three robots with a loading capacity of 700 kg. Two of these load the dryer cars while one unloads the dried roofing tiles. The production of 5 000 pressed tiles per hour is achieved by four single roofing tile presses. The system is completed with automatic movement of kiln cars and of dryer cars inside and outside of the dryer, controlled by only one operative in loading area and one in unloading.

Projects in Peru

Following the successful installation of a new modern kiln with production capacity of 500 t per day, Ladrillos Fortes contracted Sabo S.A. with the installation of a new cutting line for stiff extrusion to complete the successful project.

The new line will consist of a lateral cutter and two robots handling materials of all types from Huecco, King Kong to Pantereta clay products.

Also in Peru, a new unloading line with a capacity of 900 t per day together with a new Scada system has been supplied to Ladrillos Piramide in order to control the drying and firing process. As a result of these improvements Ladrillos Piramide has increased the quality of its products and maximized the capacity of the existing kiln and rapid dryer.

Mexico: Ladrillera Mecanizada

Ladrillera Mecanizada, one of Mexico’s leading brick manufacturers, which is located in the city of Monterey of Northern Mexico and on the border with the United States, recently completed the total reconstruction and upgrade of the whole drying process of its existing production line.

For this very important investment for the company, following a rigorous selection process, and many thorough and detailed technical discussions and clarifications on the objectives and needs to be satisfied, Sabo was entrusted with the project. The project involved the remodelling of the existing production line for facing and hollow blocks starting from the vertical cutter to the loading and unloading of the dryers prior to setting of the dried products on the kiln cars.

The main objectives of the project were the installation of a high-efficient rapid dryer and improvement of high quality of the products, necessary to meet the demands of the company’s export business. Another important demand was the reduction of energy consumption, an increasingly important goal for the heavy clay industry and the ceramics sector in Latin America in recent years to combat the increasing costs of electrical energy and fuels.

To achieve these objectives, Sabo S.A. developed and realized an advanced technical solution, which ensures a high product quality thanks to modern and efficient handling equipment and at the same time achieves a production rate of 300 t facing and hollow blocks per day in two-shift operation with low energy consumption. The project involved the installation of a highly efficient automatic dryer loading and unloading system with the option to operate with 12 or 18 dryer frames for every dryer car.

In the dryer, two-way travelling axial fans designed with several special features were installed to ensure a higher performance, low electrical consumption and ability to work without any problems in high temperatures. The equipment in the dryer is modelled and controlled with an automatic regulation Scada system, which permits the exact, automatic regulation of all the important drying parameters for each specific product or combination of them. The dryer is able to recover and recycle energy, so as to minimize its overall energy consumption.

Ladrillera La Clay, Colombia

In Colombia, Sabo S.A. undertook a second project for Ladrillera La Clay, the installation of a loading and unloading system connected with the robot-controlled setting machine from the first project with a capacity of 400 t bricks per day. With this new system, production capacity can be increased to 600 t/day fired material in future.

The customer has a line of static chambers with loading and unloading of the dryer trays, which have been replaced by a new line supplied by Sabo. The unloading system is connected by parallel chains to two benches that feed a roller programming bench, where the products are arranged in layers and in pairs by a gripper. Two layers are stacked and transported to the point where the robot receives them and sets them on the kiln cars so that five packets are stacked in two rows on each car. The process in which previously more than 30 operatives were employed in 16-hour operation, has been completely automated. The result is improved product quality and less breakage. This project was the second step in the transformation of Ladrillera La Clay into a modern automated brick plant.

Conclusion

The good cooperation between Sabo and its Latin American customers is based on Sabo’s great dedication in offering its customers specific solutions to their production problems.

Sabo S.A.
www.sabo.gr