Ceramic Industry articles from October 2005

Ceramic Industry archives from October 2005

New capabilities.(production management)
October 1, 2005... What do you do when your main product becomes a commodity? For some companies, the answer is to ship production offshore to capitalize on low-cost labor. But chasing price will eventually lead to a dead end--there will always be a lower-priced...

Debating Burner Placement.(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... I read the article by Jim Feese ("Optimizing Burner Placement," Ceramic Industry/Brick & Clay Record, August 2005, pp. 27-30) with great interest because burner placement is often overlooked in kiln design. Using Fluent[R] computational fluid...

International calendar.
October 1, 2005... OCTOBER 16-19 Plumbing Manufacturers Institute 2005 Fall Meeting, Capital Hilton, Washington, D.C., (847) 884-9764, fax (847) 884-9775, www.pmihome.org 17-21 Infrared Thermography Training: Level I, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, (800)...

Sacmi supplies plant for Grespania Ceramica.(new plant in Spain)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... A new Sacmi-made plant for the production of glazed and technical porcelain tile recently came on line at the Grespania Ceramica plant in Castellon, Spain. The complete line features three Sacmi PH4900 presses with an inter-column clearance of...

Ceradyne ranked third in list of 100 fastest-growing companies.(CERAMICS IN THE News)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Ceradyne, Inc. is third in Fortune's annual ranking of the 100 fastest-growing companies, based on revenue and profit growth, and total return from stock price appreciation during the threeyear period from 2002 to 2005. This year's list...

Hartstone Pottery holds grand re-opening.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Hartstone Pottery celebrated its grand reopening last month at its facility in Zanesville, Ohio. The pottery, which had been slated to close this summer, was purchased in June by six partners, including Clayfish LLC and The Original Hartstone...

Eriez launches new process industries group.(CERAMICS IN THE News)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Eriez recently announced the creation of its new Processing Group, which will serve the plastics, glass, rubber, pulp and paper, wood and textile industries. Jim Mitchell and Eric Taylor will support Jeff Kaveney, who is market manager for the...

Drayton Beaumont partners with Chinese kiln builder.(Drayton Beaumont Group)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... The Drayton Beaumont Group recently announced the formalization of a manufacturing partnership with a Chinese kiln builder. The partnership will result in a significant quantity of Drayton Beaumont's range of kilns being manufactured in China,...

Liekki named Technology Award winner by Frost & Sullivan.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Frost & Sullivan's 2005 European Technology Leadership Award in the field of optical fiber technologies recently went to Liekki Corp. of Finland. The award recognizes Liekki's pioneering doped optical fiber manufacturing technology, based on...

PPG Aerospace to supply cockpit windows for Airbus Military.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... PPG Aerospace--Transparencies has been awarded the sole-source contract by Airbus Military to supply the cockpit windows for its new military transport aircraft, the A400M. PPG has begun preliminary design of the transparencies for the...

Agilent and Asylum sign joint agreement.(Agilent Technologies Inc. and Asylum Research, measuring instrument development)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Agilent Technologies Inc. and Asylum Research have signed a joint development agreement to collaborate on technologies and applications in the area of nanotechnology measurements. Agilent is also making an equity investment in Asylum. Terms of...

ArmorWorks awarded contract for tactical truck add-on armor.(CERAMICS IN THE News)
October 1, 2005... The U.S Army Tank and Automotive Command (TACOM) in Warren, Mich., has awarded ArmorWorks an $18 million delivery order for the production of crew protection kits for the U.S. Army's M915 tactical truck. Manufactured using the latest ceramic...

PremaTech Advanced Ceramics.(People IN THE NEWS)
October 1, 2005... PremaTech Advanced Ceramics has announced the appointment of Rob Hay as sales manager. Most recently vice president of Sales and New Business Development at Ceramic Process Systems, Hay also spent 17 years with Saint-Gobain and Norton in a...

L&L Kiln Mfg., Inc.(People IN THE NEWS)
October 1, 2005... Gregg Dollings was recently named national sales manager for L&L Kiln Mfg., Inc. He comes to L&L with over 20 years of experience in the educational and ceramic arts market.

Poco Graphite Inc.(People IN THE NEWS)
October 1, 2005... Poco Graphite Inc. recently announced that Gary Macdonald will lead the company's glass industry sales efforts in Asia. Macdonald joins the POCO office in Australia and will manage the company's distributor network, supplying glass container...

The Manufacturers Equipment Company--MECO.(Adam W. Miller, David F. Meyer promoted)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... The board of directors of The Manufacturers Equipment Company--MECO announced several promotions at its recent annual meeting, including Adam W. Miller, PE, president, and David F. Meyer, vice president. Frank B. Carraher has been retained in...

Nth Degree Products LLC.(People IN THE NEWS)
October 1, 2005... Nth Degree Products LLC has added Ana Maria Cervantes to its staff. She will be responsible for inside sales to Central and South America.

Thermo Electron Corp.'s Process Instruments Division (PID).(People IN THE NEWS)
October 1, 2005... Ken Berger has been named president of Thermo Electron Corp.'s Process Instruments Division (PID). He is responsible for the division's $450 million business and will oversee its 2000 employees. With more than 20 years of industry experience,...

Abrasive Technology.(appointments)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2005... Abrasive Technology recently appointed two new associates to its Sales and Business Development processes. James A. McNair, Jr. has joined the Customer Communications, Sales process with sales responsibility for the states of Indiana and...

Energy crisis 101.(KILN CONNECTION)(energy conservation methods)(price hike of natural gas)(Hurricane Katrina effect)
October 1, 2005... As I write this column, Hurricane Katrina just ripped through the Gulf of Mexico a few days ago. The size of the storm was so large that it nearly filled the whole Gulf, leaving destroyed oil and gas drilling rigs in its wake, in addition to...

Indispensable refractory metal chlorides: refractory metal chlorides are used in a number of applications to increase production efficiency, improve product quality and reduce cost.(Cover Story)
October 1, 2005... Certain materials are indispensable in our everyday lives. For example, ordinary household baking soda is a fairly simple compound that is used in a wide range of household applications; you don't necessarily have to understand how it works,...

Quality reassurance in material selection: partnering with an analytical laboratory can help companies ensure that the material selected for their product works the way it was designed.(ceramic products development)
October 1, 2005... Right along with the technology used to improve manufacturing processes, ceramic materials are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex. At one time, engineers and designers had only to rely on intellectual property to make an educated...

Additives & specialty chemicals roundup.
October 1, 2005... From anti-setting agents and binders to deflocculants, lubricants and specialty minerals, a variety of additives and chemicals are used to improve production efficiency and enhance the quality and performance of today's ceramic, glass and brick...

Case study: increasing kiln performance with bubble alumina brick: lightweight bubble alumina brick has outperformed dense firebrick in three high-temperature batch kilns at Thermal Ceramics UK.(SPECIAL FOCUS: REFRACTORIES)
October 1, 2005... When the DFC production facility for Thermal Ceramics UK (TC UK) was being relocated in 2001, new kilns for the high-temperature firing of dense refractory ceramic shapes were required to replace the existing circa 1950s kilns that had been...

Better refractories through nanotechnology: new cement-free refractories capitalize on advances in nanotechnoiogy to provide higher strength, improved permeability and porosity, and better oxidation and acid resistance than their cement-bonded counterparts.(SPECIAL FOCUS: REFRACTORIES)
October 1, 2005... Most castables and gun mixes use calcium aluminate cement (CAC) to bond the refractory aggregate together. The amount of CAC in the mix can vary from relatively low quantities to 10% or more, depending on the manufacturer and the mix. The...

A merry new beginning for Frankoma Pottery: under the ownership of Det and Crystal Merryman, Frankoma is reemerging as a successful U.S.-based pottery producer.(Pottery Production Practices)(Frankoma Industries Inc.)(Column)
October 1, 2005... It's becoming a familiar story in the pottery production field: A decades-old producer of handcrafted, original American pottery closes its doors, unable to remain profitable while competing with low-priced imports. So was Frankoma Pottery's...

Stoneware clay body formulas: Part 2: the perfect body: understanding the considerations used in selecting specific clay body components can help pottery producers optimize their own formulations.(Pottery Production Practices)
October 1, 2005... A "perfect clay body" is a subjective term, but the chances of achieving this goal increase when the appropriate ratio of clays, fluxes and fillers are used. When designing a clay body, factors such as the forming method, dry shrinkage, firing...

Piece by piece: Santa Theresa Tile Works is inspiring numerous communities and individuals with its colorful tile mosaics.(Pottery Production Practices)(Column)
October 1, 2005... Founded in 1986, Tucson, Ariz.-based Santa Theresa Tile Works, Inc. has risen from its humble beginnings as a backyard startup to become a leader in the decorative ceramic tile industry. Perhaps best known for its public art installations...

Efficient clay recycling: equipment such as batch mixing pugmills can make recycling clay a much easier process for many classrooms and pottery production studios.(Pottery Production Practices)(Column)
October 1, 2005... For centuries, many pottery producers and schools have recycled clay by hand. Manual recycling can, of course, produce a high-quality plastic body when done correctly. However, the process is very labor intensive and time consuming. In general,...