The Almeria giant Cosentino has just announced one of its most powerful bets on innovation and R&D. An investment of 90 million euros to launch ‘Circular Technological Quarry’ (CT Quarry).
An innovative plan, the only medium-scale Spanish project selected by the European Commission’s Innovation Fund, which aims to revolutionize the industry by creating a pioneering industrial plant that will promote sustainability in key sectors such as construction, glass and ceramic materials.
During the presentation at Cosentino City Madrid, Álvaro de la Haza, Executive Vice President of the company, highlighted the importance of this project within the three-year investment plans 2024-2026, which total close to 400 million euros. According to de la Haza, “our innovation strategy focuses on efficiency and sustainability to continue leading a challenging global market, marked by Asian competition, environmental challenges and rising costs.
Cosentino, with two National Innovation Awards awarded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (2016-2021), and selected as a finalist two consecutive years for the National Award for Connected Industry 4.0 (2023-2024)has consolidated itself as a leading company and benchmark within its sector worldwide through the development of new disruptive materials, and applying the latest technology both in the efficiency of production processes and in digitalization of the value chain.
This strategic axis is supported by a relevant investment effort. In 2023 Cosentino invested 22 million euros in R&DI projects and assets, raising this figure to more than 100 million accumulated in the last five years. A commitment that is also supported by an extensive industrial property portfolio that covers 30 families of patents in force that protect different inventions in the different countries where it operates, in addition to 88 different registered designs.
400 million
De la Haza recalled that the 2024-2026 Investment Plan is currently being implemented, which amounts to a total of nearly 400 million euros. “Our innovation strategy revolves around two axes, which are efficiency and sustainability, in order to continue leading an increasingly challenging market, as a result of the advance of Asian competition, the environmental challenge and the costs of raw materials, maintaining our commitment to centralized production in our industrial park in Almería,” he added.
This is how he explained that ‘Circular Technological Quarry’ aims at the future construction of a world-first industrial-scale plant to produce innovative and sustainable raw materials for the EU construction, glass and ceramic materials sectors, complying with three fundamental principles: low carbon emissions, circularity and safety.
The new factory will process more than 100,000 tons/year of residual industrial sludge from Cosentino’s production processes, avoiding its discharge, and converting it, in combination with other materials, into more than 247,000 tons/year of new raw materials for which it already Its future applications are planned. The project integrates the use of renewable fuels and electrical energywith heat recovery systems, and is expected to achieve an absolute reduction in GHG emissions of more than 1 million tons of CO? in ten years.
This project follows the path of more than four decades of constant product innovation that has had its latest milestone in Hybriq+®the technology patented by Cosentino that “has allowed us not only to completely modify the nature of Silestone®but to mark the path of the global industry towards more sustainable engineered surfaces, with a greater presence of recycled raw materials, and low in silica”, as Tijeras has pointed out.
Reduce silica and quartz
Thanks to Hybriq+®, the company has been able to progressively reduce the presence of silica or quartz in its composition, until last year all Silestone® production is under the Q40 variant, that is, with a maximum of 40% of silica in its composition. In parallel, Cosentino has been advancing and producing several collections and colors from the brand’s portfolio in Q10, with only between 1% and 10% crystalline silica in its formulation.
Finally, recent examples have also been cited of how the company is also advancing in the integration of new technologies into its surfaces in the field of the “connected” or smart home. With its ultra-compact porcelain surface Dekton® currently leads the field of kitchen countertops with integrated or invisible induction hobs, with models developed together with companies such as Gaggenau or Novy. And just a few weeks ago, the company reached an agreement with Freepower in the US whereby both Silestone® and Dekton® surfaces can act as wireless chargers for different electronic devices.
Another field in which the company is positioning itself as a global reference is in the so-called Industry 4.0. With an Industrial Park close to 4 million square meters in which it houses 9 factories and a fully automated logistics warehouse, Cosentino has converted its complex in Cantoria (Almería) into a true Smart Factory with more than 70,000 monitored variables, and 96 Robots or RPA’s 100% R&D&I from Cosentino.
As Álvaro Sánchez-Apellaniz, Chief Strategy & Data Officer, explained, after the creation of a Datalake in which to centralize all the information generated by the organization (from supply of raw materials, production, management and customers), important advances in efficiency and decision making turning Cosentino into a Data-Driven organization, through advanced analytical tools and Artificial Intelligence.
Specifically, in the manufacturing part, the company is committed to the concept of “Connected factory”which has meant the creation of a unique platform to store, visualize and exploit IoT data, in addition to providing service to other auxiliary applications intended for production. This project began in 2018 and currently has more than 70,000 process variables.
Artificial intelligence
In a complementary way, the other great scope of the company’s commitment to digitalization and data management lies in the efficiency and optimization of processes linked to its commercial activity and the relationship with customers. This axis is reflected in the project “Smart Connect” development by the company’s DBU (Digital Business Unit) and Business Technology areas.
Through the Agile methodology in a SCRUM framework, Cosentino has in recent years developed digital platforms for five verticals of its business: Kitchen Stores, Marblers, Architects, Designers and End Consumers, through a customer-focused vision. Platforms such as We Professional, eCosentino or C.Top Design articulate what is called the “eCosentino ecosystem“, a group formed today by more than 300,000 professionals.
As Sánchez-Apellaniz has pointed out, “with this B2B and B2C digitalization strategy, we manage to strengthen communication and connection with our customer ecosystem, which also links and feeds back to our commercial network and with the Cosentino Centers & Citiesgenerating new business opportunities and being able to increase the company’s sales”.
As far as process efficiency is concerned, the recent project carried out by Celonis, a world-leading firm in intelligence and process mining, has also been explained. In just seven weeks, teams from both firms developed a AI assistant for credit block management capable of analyzing blocked orders in a matter of seconds. This allows managers to process up to 5 times more orders per day without additional risks.
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