Refractories SIGMA

Italian refractory material provider invests in its development

Glass industry veteran Vitaliano Gregori* recently joined Sigma Ref. He discusses his new role as well as the investments planned by the company for 2021.

Congratulations on your recent appointment at Sigma Ref. When did you start and how is the new job so far? Thank you. I see that the announcement of my change that I placed in a wellknown professional social media aroused reactions. In Sigma I started precisely on May 3rd.

Honestly, I must tell you that I am really very enthusiastic about the choice I made and this is due to the wonderful people I met and who welcomed me at all levels.

The company mood also helps a lot: it is highly operational and supported by a “normal” serenity in relationships between colleagues.

What will your new role entail? Formally it is not a new role for me. I will continue to provide commercial service to customers in Latin America, just as I did in the last 14 years.

I will have relationships with customers that almost everyone already knows me and with which I have excellent relationships, both personal and professional. I hope they can accept me with a new cap on my head, but so far it seems so.

I will also be supported on-site by the agency Glass Export in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bernardo and Sebastian Szulman and their collaborators Julia and Matias. I have already worked with them, being in good relations for many years.

My arrival at Sigma is a proof of the company’s willingness to also invest in human resources to implement commercial development, especially abroad.

In my specific case, in Latin America, which is an extensive market with great opportunities, although some countries suffer an important economic crisis which the present pandemic unfortunately increased.

� Mr Gregori is a veteran of the glass industry.

Sigma’s background is in refractories. Is this a new area for you? Have you had to learn much about refractories and new technologies for this role? Well, to answer that question, I need to tell you a little bit about my professional

history. I have been operating in the field of technology for hollow glass production for 25 years.

I started as an Electronic Service Engineer dedicated to the container forming line, in short from feeder to stacker. Later I held roles of technicalcommercial and commercial but expanding my knowledge and scope of work to the whole hot-end area of a glassworks, then including the batchplant, furnaces and forehearths, also passing through the management of offers for complete turn-key projects of a discussions, necessary but not the main one.

Today it represents all my work: so now I am already engaged in the study of the details, both the chemical-physical ones and those of the production processes, especially the innovative ones adopted by Sigma, including the problems that may arise due to the use.

I’m also studying at night and on weekends, just like I did at university. This gives me new energy and makes me feel “differently-young”.

I know it’s not going to be easy or

Sigma consists of three companies, two sites in Italy, and one in Bulgaria.�

glass plant. It was a fantastic school.

I don’t think that many sales managers in the sector can boast of having done it, but above all customers always felt that together we could discuss details of the most varied topics, “from furnace to stacker, including electronics, and, finally, arriving to the commercial terms”.

Well, in all this the refractory material was for me a component of my offers and immediate, but for Sigma I want to be able to offer customers that 360° technical support that they always received from me.

In this task I am greatly helped by my “senior” colleagues Alberto Tedeschi and Luigi Mandelli, the two Sales Directors, as well as by Roberto Mari, the founder of Sigma together with his father: they are three true experts in the matter. What was it about Sigma that impressed you the most during your discussions with them? I personally know for many years the three managers I have just mentioned. Especially Luigi, whom I have always met in the various events “Glassman” in which both participated and Alberto, to which many times I asked for practical advice on refractories.

For me their reliability as person and professional was and still is the flag of the Sigma Company.

But there are two other facts I want to mention you. If you read the message included in the video presentation on the website and that is also included in the signatures of corporate emails, you will find written “30 years - 3rd generation” and “Refractories with passion”.

The fact that the third generation is already operating in the company (Federico, Roberto’s son, is charged as C.O.O. here in Locate Varesino plant) is clear proof that there is a whole family that strongly believes in the product that developed and improved over the years. And moreover, they make it “with passion”, that is not only investing in R&D and advanced technology, but they make it in heart, like all the people who work in Sigma.

When these three aspects come together, then you can overcome every obstacle, achieve fantastic results and give maximum satisfaction to your customers.

For me this is enough to have confidence in a company like Sigma. I did it by becoming a collaborator, I would definitely do it if I were a customer.

How have Sigma’s products evolved technically in recent years? As in every sector, even in the field of technological refractories to be a global player it is necessary to devote ample resources to R&D and to production processes innovation.

I immediately realised that all this has always been in Sigma’s DNA thanks to the improvement of the intrinsic product, machinery, and production processes.

Here is not the right place to make long lists, but I can certainly mention “chemcasting” as a strong point of Sigma.

The development of specific chemical binders, instead of water, which dry in a very short time, combined with advanced machinery such as long-term vibration boards and controlled temperature

drying plants, ensure that there is always high quality and a significant reduction in the production time of vibrated products.

Therefore a strong reduction in supply time to the customer, combined with capacity, when required and in specific situations, to produce blocks of really remarkable dimensions and weights, up to 3m and 1800kg.

The production of the pressed material takes place in fully automatic lines with modern and powerful hydraulic presses enslaved by robots.

Just as robots ensure the automatic and fast loading and unloading of the kilns for material thermal treatment up to 1700 ºC of temperature.

For those blocks that require machining, these are secured by multiaxis and laser position control grinders.

The pre-assembly service for large areas is ensured by the presence of a 200 sqm levelled steel table.

In addition, great efforts have been made to improve the material, such as the series “Excelsius” for zirconium-mullite feeder products that offers prolonged operating life, less defectiveness on the glass container, ultimately a better packto-melt of the customer’s production line.

Currently Sigma’s “winning horse” is still the “vertiflow” tube, a Sigma patent, which has been increasingly successful in all those glass plants that have tried it.

According to Sigma’s website, new investments are planned for 2021. Are you able to tell us about these? Sigma is a group consisting of three companies: two productive (SIGMA Srl, Italy, the historic one, started in 1990) and Sigma Srlu, Bulgaria, started in 2014) and one dedicated to the trading of products (Refratrade, Italy).

The ongoing pandemic has only slowed, but not cancelled, the remarkable expansion, result of significant investments that have been continuously implemented in the company.

If we consider only the last 15 years, production capacity increased from 3,000 to 22,000 tonnes per year and human resources from 45 to 110.

Meanwhile, turnover grown more than five times with sales expansion in each continent. These are considerable figures and, as you just mentioned, they are going to increase thanks to the ongoing expansion of both the Italian and the Bulgarian production units.

For the customer all this means a further improvement of the production flexibility, that already is a point of strength for Sigma, and always with high quality standards of the offered product.

In fact, the world’s leading glassmakers rely on Sigma for their purchases of refractory material, both for furnaces and forehearth, and for feeder variables.

You are a well-known ‘face’ of the industry. Are we still likely to see you at various trade shows and conference in future years still? I actually feel like a “veteran”, but the spirit is always young. So many times, I’ve been introduced by you to the technical

� Mr Gregori speaking during a Glassman conference in South America.

“Today we live in a continuous succession of rapid events and people and companies face opportunities or need for change.”

conferences at Glassman.

Surely, I will still attend with enthusiasm to the various shows in the industry. These are events that help to develop and consolidate the contact with customers, both actual and potential.

About the conferences, if the company deems it as opportune, I’ll take part actively, but as soon as I have finished my studies about refractories!

You have spent several years in the glass sector. What do you enjoy about it? We are all users of glass products, but we do not realise the difficulty that exists for their production at acceptable costs and guaranteeing quality.

First as a technician and then as a commercial, I have always been in contact with plants, I have experienced technological developments, including those aimed at reducing energy consumption through small or large strategies.

As an engineer, what I like is understanding, living and offering the complex technology that underlies the production of glass artifacts, an apparently simple material that, basically, is “only melted sand and then worked”.

I’m sure I’ll have the same interest in the refractory materials industry.

Let me tell you my little secret: when I pick up a bottle and with professional deformation, I try to identify the producer, I think that maybe inside there is an infinitesimal part of my work and this gives me satisfaction.

With your experience, what do you think are the glass sector’s greatest challenges? Concerning food and drinks, unless new containers could be developed in the field of bio-products, glass is certainly the most suitable material to contain them safely and with maximum hygiene. It is very likely that for many years it will continue to be so.

In my opinion, therefore, the challenge that the sector must constantly face is that of reducing the use of energy and the production costs combined with extending the operating life of the plants.

The reduction of direct production costs is possible upon measuring and analysing the different usages: nowadays, the applications of Industry 4.0 help a lot in this.

Small and medium-sized glass producers must also take an active part in this challenge, since the large ones are

already equipped to do so.

The technological development of refractory materials also greatly contributes to the extension of the operating life of the plants. it is enough to think that at the beginning of the last century the useful life of the furnace was limited to two years, operating at max 1300 °C as the refractory bricks dissolved. Today we have materials that can operate up to 2000 ºC of temperature and withstand very well the thermal expansion and corrosion due to the melting process, ensuring furnaces and forehearths useful life that can exceed 10

years.

Relying on producers who demonstrate that they have a serious R&D becomes therefore a must. It is a false saving to want to buy a certain type of material only considering the one that has the lowest price without analysing the properties of the material itself.

There is a serious risk of having to pay for higher operating costs or a reduced service life, and this is a serious problem in a globalised market. Why was now the right time to change role? The answer is not so easy. Today we live in a continuous succession of rapid events and people and companies face opportunities or need for change.

It is never too late to learn something new and entering a new game, as we’re invited to do by Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta in her poem “Life is”: “... Life is

� A mullite for a regenerator chamber. � Sigma makes products for use in a glass refractory.

an opportunity, benefit from it... Life is a challenge, meet it... Life is an adventure, dare it...”. �

*Sales Manager for Central and South America Sigma Ref, Locate Varesino, Lombardy, Italy https://www.sigmaref.it/

Automatic Chutes SCRAPER CONVEYORS

CULLET CRUSHERS

vidromecanica@vidromecanica.com www.vidromecanica.com

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