There were indications of confidence returning to the international stone industry at the Italian Marmomacc exhibition in Verona this month with exhibitors reporting more visitors and a greater willingness among them to invest.
For more pictured from the exhibition, click here.
Italian stone companies know they often can’t compete with cheaper imports on price alone, so they have stopped trying. They have turned instead to their strength in design to give them an advantage, and there was plenty of evidence of it at the Marmomacc stone exhibition in Verona this month.
You will be able to see some of the innovations at the UK’s own Natural Stone Show, which will be held at ExCeL London 15-17 March next year, following a formal agreement of co-operation and endorsement between the two shows signed earlier this year.
The idea behind the Italians’ innovation in design is that the only goods people buy on price are commodities – and even then only if they really are identical. If there is any degree of quality or aesthetic variation, price is not the only consideration.
Granite paving and travertine flooring might be considered commodities – and certainly plenty of people selling them treat them as such by concentrating on nothing but the price – but most stone isn’t a commodity because of its infinite variety. Choosing one stone rather than another normally involves aesthetics as well as price considerations.
Certainly when it comes to interior decoration, price is only a guide. A clear indication of that is the amount of quartz composite being sold. Most consumers are surprised to discover the man-made product is going to cost them more than granite. But they still buy it. And computerised machinery has made it possible to do a lot with stone these days without it becoming prohibitively expensive for the majority of customers.
Some of the ideas on show at Marmomacc in their now regular Marmomacc Meets Design feature certainly would not be cheap but they are entering the realms of a greater proportion of the population.
The idea that it was possible to raise the price point of stone by increasing the options available was behind the introduction by French manufacturers Thibaut of their T918 machine, which enables masonry companies to add all sorts of patterns and textures to stone in their own workshops.
The T918 was one of the machines they showed this year at Marmomacc. As well as offering finishing options, it is also a saw and a general purpose CNC workcentre.
Another innovation on the Thibaut stand was the addition of a reciprocating blade on the TC650 saw (see the picture on the next page). This enables the saw to cut square inside corners. And you don’t have to stop the machine to do it. The reciprocating blade is lowered to finish the corner automatically as programmed. Other manufacturers have offered an square corner option by adding a waterjet cutter to their saws but the jigsaw is a less expensive way of achieving it.
Like several of the other saw manufacturers, Thibaut have put vacuum lifts on to their saws so that the machines will move already cut pieces of stone out of the way, allowing subsequent cuts to be made without having to stop the machine or waste stock.
There were fewer of the UK machinery agents at Marmomacc this time and those there were did not all stay for the whole show – an indication of the limited amount of activity in machinery sales.
Carl Sharkey was exhibiting once again as Laser Products Europe, accompanied by Dan Louis, President of the American Corporation who makes the laser templaters, as well as spending time on the Breton stand as the head of the newly formed Breton Machinery UK. “It’s looking a lot more positive than last year,” he told NSS.
Carl was also accompanied by technician John Hatzer. John installed and serviced the Breton machines for Ebor while they represented Breton in the UK but has moved with the machines into the new company with Carl.
They have sold three Breton CNC workcentres in the three months since the company was set up, which was their target for the year. Another was signed off at Intermac and Carl believes he could sell as many as eight or 10 in the year. Breton were showing their newly developed own-brand software in Verona.
On the laser templater side, Carl says he has sold twice as many this year as last year and that there are now 65 units in the UK.
Derrick Fretwell was introducing the new Intra bridge saw to visitors on the GMM stand and showing the vacuum lifting device on the Litox. The Intra fills a gap just below the Egil in the GMM range. It does not have the camera of the Egil for setting out and plotting the cuts but Derrick quite likes that as it is one less part to be maintained.
NSS caught up with Andy Bell on the ScandInvent stand. The Swedish-made CNC machines are now being sold in the UK by Andy’s company, Stone Machinery UK Ltd. They have only just taken on the range and have already made their first sale.
There were more robotic arms on show in Verona this year from more companies as competition gradually hots up. The hardware of the arms themselves has been proven in various industries and the software is gradually being adapted to the satisfaction of the masonry companies who want to use the technology.
Luca Terzago, originally with HTM but now heading T&D Robotics, promises he is on the verge of introducing new software to make the robotic arms suitable for the kitchen worktop market, where they have struggled to achieve the productivity required by the stone processors. He says it will be available at the end of this month or next (November).
T&D are no longer using the Kuka arm but have switch to the ABB version. When Luca first started developing the technology for stone processing he used an ABB arm but switched to Kuka because he thought it was better. Now he says ABB have moved ahead. He says he has sold 11 of his Lapisystem robots in less than a year since T&D were formed.
Marmomacc remains one of the world’s most important stone exhibitions, reflecting Italy’s position as one of the leading stone trading nation’s. Although the economic climate remains difficult, Italy’s stone exports increased by 6% in the first half of this year to d771million while their imports rose 14% to d378million. China remains Italy’s biggest customer for block.
The exhibition itself once again saw an increase in international exhibitors this year with 798 of the 1,500 exhibitors coming from outside Italy – 9% more than in 2009. For the first time there were companies from the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Rumania and Ukraine.