Wednesday every day
Mastering processes in the ceramics plants
Stable processes, less guesswork: the ceramics plants are currently taking a closer look at their workflows. A tour of the plant in Haldensleben (DE) shows what this means in practice.
The air is still on this Wednesday in Haldensleben, Germany. 35 degrees Celsius and tropical humidity reign on this hot summer’s day. A day like this once gave reasons to be joyful at the Geberit plant, offering ideal conditions for manufacturing ceramic appliances. In the hot, humid summer months, the slip dries slowly and evenly without cracks. And experience also shows that the plaster mould is at its best on Wednesday – neither too dry like at the start of the week nor too moist like at the weekend.
Much lower scrap rates
For a long time, the interplay of sun and rain, summer and winter was a challenge. “It’s raining this week, so we can’t deliver,” was commonly heard. The result was high scrap rates, in other words a high proportion of faulty products that are rejected.
Today, things are different: climate, processes and materials follow clear parameters. The factory floor works regardless of the weather outside, controlled by data and reference points. “Now it’s Wednesday every day,” says Head of Production Stefan Radke.
Gut feeling made visible
This is made possible, for example, by a new humidification system that decouples the conditions in the hall from the weather outside. According to Stefan Radke, regulating humidity is essential for a good end product. This is something every ceramics expert has a feel for.
“Make this gut feeling visible, and you master the process,” adds Process Engineer Julius Hain from the Ceramics Technology team, the local experts for ceramic processes. Together with the on-site production team and the Group Competence Centre for Ceramic Technology, he defines and describes processes “from beginning to end”, collects data and tests techniques in Haldensleben, which are then rolled out to additional plants in the Geberit ceramics network. “Nowadays, we measure and document everything, from the viscosity of the slip and glaze to the casting time and the thickness of the cast blank,” says the 33-year-old.
The results speak for themselves: “We have been able to reduce the scrap rate by more than 60%.” This makes Haldensleben one of the Geberit ceramics plants with the fewest rejects.
