Crossville Inc. Tile is an all-American manufacturer of pure excellence. Founded in 1986, it specializes in porcelain tiles, with a sharp focus on products such as full body and/or glazed technical stoneware. It now joins forces with Sacmi to complete an ambitious modernization plan involving the supply of key body preparation technologies and a next-gen dryer.
“A family-owned, American company, we serve designers and architects, helping them create beautiful indoor and outdoor floors, walls, and countertops”. This sums up Crossville -headquartered in the city of the same name in Tennessee- perfectly.
Outstanding product quality, technical specifications and practicality are the hallmarks of Crossville. Already a long-standing Sacmi customer, it now seeks to boost its manufacturing versatility, expand capacity in terms of quantity and size (from the classic 60×60 to 60×90 and 120×120 cm) and take environmental sustainability to the next level.
Sacmi has provided Crossville with key technologies such as continuous modular grinding and a new 5-tier dryer. In detail:
- a 16.9-m ECP307 5-tier dryer with separate levels and a final stabilization module. The dryer replaces an existing machine to make production more flexible, especially with medium-large formats.
- a new MMC74 mill, part of the latest generation of Sacmi modular mills designed to maximize grinding quality and minimize consumption. The MMC74 will operate alongside the existing machine (a Sacmi continuous mill that has delivered years of first-rate service), ensuring all the advantages of higher efficiency, greater process versatility and less water/energy consumption.
Sacmi brings its full complement of plant engineering skills to the Crossville project. To ensure the customer can count on comprehensive support and service, all the machines were supplied together with auxiliary systems such as loading/unloading control panels and the automatic slip and color mix control system (QMB).
Given the uniqueness of Crossville products -technical glazed stoneware of various types and finishes- the latter will play a crucial role in boosting system flexibility in accordance with needs.
Expected to be fully operational in the second half of the year, the plant will extend the attainable medium-size range (e.g. 120×120 cm), also by making the most of the Sacmi PH7500 press which has already been in service for some years.
