The new Gral facility – Flexible production
with high manufacturing capacity
with high manufacturing capacity
Located in the extreme north of the municipality of
Alfonsine (province of Ravenna, Italy), the new Gral factory was constructed by the Clay Products Division of Unieco, a major industrial group organized as a cooperative and founded in 1904, in collaboration with IBL, a historic company with factories in Cotignola (province of Ravenna) and Bentivoglio (province of Bologna). IBL belongs to the Dafin Group, which is owned by the D’Agostino family. The plant features state-of-the-art technology and constitutes one of the most substantial investments to have been made recently in the Italian heavy clay sector.
1 Introduction
The key characteristics of the new plant are its flexibility, high production capacity and low electricity and heat energy consumption.
The plant has an extremely high level of operational flexibility and is capable of producing a wide range of products including solid bricks, hollow blocks, floor elements and thermal blocks. It also has a very high production capacity of 1 300 tonnes per day, which – with the exception of the fine preparation and shaping – is obtained with a single production line. The Gral plant also achieves an outstanding performance in terms of energy...