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he SITI B&T Group is listed on the Italian stock market, and is a global manufacturer of state-of-the-art production plants for the ceramic tile and sanitary ware industries. Recently the group enhanced its leading position as a major world player following the award of a number of new, high-profile contracts. Today more than 85 per cent of the company’s turnover is generated from export sales, with its global network of service companies making it the company of choice for many of the world’s top ceramic tile and sanitary ware manufacturers. Now SITI B&T’s advanced technologies are able to offer ceramics manufacturers a unique opportunity to improve the quality of their finished products by producing modern tiles that offer greater market appeal than ever before. Added to this, the company’s range of ‘Green’ technologies has defined new industry standards in terms of performance, reliability and productivity. These benefits have been achieved through a significant reduction in energy consumption and other relevant cost savings throughout the entire service life of a plant. With more than 2500 customers worldwide and a growing global network of technical support agencies, SITI B&T is able to offer an unrivalled after-sales service backed up by the most qualified technical specialists in the world. Today the group has more than 100 active patents and offers an innovative range of the most energy-efficient production plants. Its kilns, dryers and spray-dryers optimise its latest cutting-edge high-tech applications, which are able to reduce energy consumption by as much as 30 per cent.
Strengthening presence During the last ten years the SITI B&T Group has installed and serviced dozens of unique, turnkey manufacturing systems in Russia. These have been specifically designed and installed for the country’s leading tile and sanitary ware manufacturers. Russia
42 Industry Europe
is one of the world’s foremost producers of ceramic products and one that continues to see strong and consistent growth. This market is therefore of particular interest to the group and one that it plans to follow closely. In addition to its central Moscow office, the company has decided to strengthen its presence in the country in order to better serve its growing Russian customer base. “This is another important step to implement our international network that fully fits our strategy based on our investments in research and development and to have a direct presence in all major ceramic markets worldwide. By supporting our customers in dealing with their everyday problems, we intend to offer qualified assistance throughout the entire life-cycle of a plant – thereby ensuring its proper operation and creating a real competitive advantage for the users of our advanced technologies,” said Fabio Tarozzi, chairman and CEO of the SITI B&T Group. Today the group has dozens of completed plants operating in Russia. These have been installed throughout the last ten years for leading Russian ceramic manufacturers, for the production of tiles as well as for sanitary ware products. These individual plants cover the group’s entire technological range that not only involve the parent company, SITI B&T, but also its wholly owned subsidiaries including Projecta Engineering, Digital Design, Ancora and B&T White.
Increasing return on investment In February 2015, SITI B&T made the strategic decision to acquire Ancora SpA, a Sassuolo-based Italian company that specialises in the provision of top-class technological solutions and advanced ceramic finishing processes. This move has paid big dividends for the group, for in addition to complementing its unrivalled portfolio of products and processes, Ancora has also achieved an increase in annual sales over its last fiscal year of more than 45 per cent.
