Who’s the customer?
Marcegaglia is Italy’s leading group in the national and international steel industry. It has been processing steel for over sixty years. Founded by Steno Marcegaglia in 1959, the company boasts a unique production-business model, exemplifying that Italian family-led industrialism which combines operational flexibility with the far-reaching market presence typical of multinationals.
CROMATICA is the latest innovation in the COATEEL® range of the Marcegaglia Group’s pre-painted steel products division. It stems from years of research and development and is also the result of partnerships with leading digital printing firms, paint manufacturers, production plants, universities and design studios.
The challenge
With CROMATICA, Marcegaglia aims to extend the use of pre-painted materials to new sectors such as architecture and design. However, they’re also looking to achieve far more: to make a world in which steel is used extensively a more beautiful one. How? With colour. CROMATICA, in fact, lets manufacturers print customised patterns and images on the surfaces of steel and other materials, with a near-infinite range of colours, shades, opacities and processes.
To rise to this challenge, Marcegaglia has invested in research, innovation and continuous experimentation by relying on trailblazing partners like Cefla Finishing.
The Cefla Finishing solution
The Cefla Finishing plant allowed the customer to make CROMATICA fully operational, efficiently and innovatively. Digital printing on large surface areas has been made possible through extreme customisation based on actual customer requirements.
Salvatore Pisani, Marketing Director of CROMATICA, highlights just how decisive the collaboration with Cefla was to achieving an excellent product: We knew Cefla as a dynamic, innovation-oriented leader in its sector. During our market survey, aimed at identifying our future technological partner, Cefla completed a major investment that strengthened its printing division. As soon as we approached them, it was clear this was a solid, well-organised, professional company that’s easy to work with. We were soon able to get in synch and deal with the daily challenges.
Results
CROMATICA has an output capacity of 60 metres/minute, 6.7 million square metres/year, or 30,000 T/year with the following technical characteristics: thickness from 0.25 to 1.6 mm, width up to 1,500 mm and ‘unlimited’ length.
The CROMATICA product can be customised from a ‘visual’ perspective with colours, textures, images and patterns and from a ‘sensory’ perspective by providing finishes with multiple tactile effects that are also extremely hard-wearing outdoors.
This makes it the perfect response to a vast range of creative/technical needs across various fields of application: from residential and office buildings to private homes, from infrastructure to urban design, interior design, retail design and even in the nautical, automotive and transport sectors.
In the words of Andrea Brotini, CROMATICA Sales Director, “imagine building facades that are not merely appealing but also weather-resistant, public spaces that maintain their beauty for years or interior walls with striking colours and finishes. All this is reality, now”.
Once again, these excellent results were possible thanks to the partnership with Cefla and its ultra-customised solutions.
A cutting-edge plant that combines sustainability with automation
The CROMATICA production line, located at the Ravenna plant (where Marcegaglia has built its largest steel processing plant and an integrated logistics hub), is 100% automated. In truth, Marcegaglia's entire manufacturing cycle is automated: from the moment the coils are offloaded from the ship onto the site dock and registered on the IT systems to when they’re conveyed inside by overhead cranes and AGVs that already know where they’re going. Even safety is automated, while machine learning algorithms check that items on production lines comply with the established parameters.
Nothing is left to chance in CROMATICA's ‘coil to coil’ printing operations: being able to produce huge quantities of material without compromising quality is the top priority.
In this respect, the CROMATICA production process is simple: once the order has arrived, the graphics team proceeds to create the graphics to be printed on-coil. In-line digital printing on coils then follows.
As Antonio Bonoli, CROMATICA’s Coil Coating Line Manager, points out, “the digital printing process department is equipped with 4-colour technology. The use of four essential colours — cyan, magenta, yellow and black — gives us access to an infinite chromatic range. This means practically limitless freedom to customise products according to the customers’ individual needs”.
All while focusing on reducing any material or energy waste because sustainability, like automation, is a crucial part of the CROMATICA production process right from the beginning: from the steel, which is infinitely recyclable, to the meticulous selection of raw materials, the carefully controlled production lines and Marcegaglia’s short supply chains.
"Collaboration with Cefla has proved to be extremely rewarding. Development and implementation of this innovative technology at the brand new CROMATICA production plant have given us the tools needed to face new challenges in the architecture and design fields."
Salvatore Pisani - Marketing Director of CROMATICA
