Gujarat Plant:

GUJARAT. The place is around 60 km away from Vadodara.

ØThis plant is the REGISTERED OFFICE of Bell Ceramics Limited.

ØThe commercial production of floor tiles started in the year 1988.

ØFrom 26^th March 1998, Single Fired Wall Tile production got started.

ØIn year 2005, Double Fired Wall Tile production was initialized with introduction of 10” x 13” designs along with Edge-cut (397 mm x 379 mm) Floor Tiles.

ØThe present capacity of plant is around 17,000 sqm per day.

ØThe Technology used in this plant is Wet Process.

ØRoller Hearth Klin, Screen Printing, screen preparation, design development department and dark room.

ØA full fledged in house die shop where all the dies are machined ground and finished.

ØA Large spray Drier and Slip house department.

ØA fully equipped R&D Division which continuously develops new designs, textures, colours and sizes of Wall and Floor Tiles keeping with the market trends.

ØCurrent Product Sizes:

• Wall Tiles: 200 x 300 mm, 295 x 445 mm
• Floor Tiles: 300 x 300 mm,395 x 395 mm (Edge-cut)

Advantages

• Light in Weight, Excellent Sheen
  
• Porous Body Hence has capacity to absorb water, which results in a strong grip on walls.
  
• Resistant to Bacterial growth hence suitable to areas like kitchens, bathrooms, pantries Hospitals, laboratories, swimming pools etc.
  
• Red body resulting in better quality and strength.
  
• Imported frits and Glazes resulting in Classy looks and world class quality.
  
  

Facilities

Ø      Roller Hearth Klin, well proven for single firing, fast firing.

Ø      Screen Printing, screen preparation, design development department, and dark room.

Ø      A full fledged in house die shop where all the dies are machined ground and finished.

Ø      A Large spray Drier and Slip house department.

Ø      A fully equipped R&D Division which continuously develops new designs, textures, colours and sizes of Wall Tiles keeping with the market trends.

Raw Materials

Ø      Primary raw materials required for manufacture of Floor tiles are various types of lays, quartz, Calcite/Woolastonoite, Frits, and Glazes.

Ø      Most of the raw materials are easily available in Gujarat and in the neighboring state of Rajasthan.

Ø      Bell uses natural gas as fuel right from the inception stages .The fuel is sourced from GAIL.

Ø      Frits and Glazes are imported from abroad to give the world class quality and exotic look to the tiles.

MANUFACTURING PROCESS-WALL TILES (DORA PLANT) 

Ø      Manufacture of Double Fast Fired Wall Tiles is a highly technology production process.

Ø      The various raw materials are weighed individually and ground in a Ball Mill with water .The resulting Slurry consists of around 60% solids and 40% water.

Ø      The Slurry is then Spray Dried at High pressure to obtain a powder with around 5.5 % moisture content.

Ø      Such powders are stored in Stainless steel Silos.

Ø      Then the powder is pressed in high pressure hydraulic presses (Press no. 1 & 2) into the shape of a tile.

Ø      The tiles are then passed through a Horizontal Drier and subsequently through a Kiln where the Tiles are fired at high temperature.

Ø      Those single fired tiles are then glazed into glazing lines. Various colours in the glazes are coated onto the tiles by glazing machines.

Ø      The tiles are also printed by screen printing machines which work at very high speeds.

Ø      The glazed tiles are then passed through the second kiln where the temperature is even higher than the first kiln (around 1110 degree C temp).

Ø      This results in Double Fast Fired Tiles with attractive appearances.

Ø      Then the tiles are graded for size, shade and then packed in automatic selection lines.

Ø     The Tiles are palletized and shifted to the warehouse and are ready to be dispatched by trucks to adorn the walls of the buyer.

Ø      The Floor Tile manufacturing process is almost the same as that of the Wall Tile.

Ø      The only change is the omission of the First Firing. After taking the tile of of press (Press no 1, 2 or 3), it is directly sent through the glaze line and Screen-printing.

Ø      The Tiles are then loaded to cars.

Ø      The cars are taken to the entrance of the kiln.

Ø      After passing through the Kiln, sorting is done.

Ø       The boxes are sent to the warehouse for storage/dispatch.

MANUFACTURING PROCESS-FLOOR TILES (HOSKOTE PLANT) 

Ø      Manufacturing of Floor tiles at Hoskote is done in the state of the art plant using multi-line dry process technology.

Ø      The various raw materials like Shale/Clay/Chamotee are started in the clay shed.

Ø      The raw materials are fed into 5 feed hoppers .Each feed hopper containing a particular raw material.

Ø      The resultant pieces are sieved and then stored in silos .The hard raw materials enters the Pendular Mill (Ring Roller) where it is crushed into powder form.

Ø      The powder is sieved by screens where the particles which are not crushed are sent back to pendular Mill .The fine dust is stored into Silos each one storing different components of raw materials.

Ø      The raw materials now get mixed on the conveyor belt and passes through the bucket elevator and is sieved and again mixed properly in the screw conveyors.

Ø      The powder undergoes wetting in Silos and the resultant powder has moisture content around 7.5% - 8%.

Ø      The powder is pressed in 3 presses where at one time 4 tiles of 300 mm * 300 mm or 3 tiles of 400 mm *400 mm can be pressed in 1 press.

Ø      The pressed tile passes through twilting unit and passes through the dryer where 80 degree C temperature is maintained .The tiles are then glazed in the glazing lines by glazing machines and then printed by roller printers.

Ø      The glazed tiles enters the 126 meter long Kiln and is subjected to around 1140 ⁰C.

Ø      This results in affordable Bell floor tiles conserving energy and water and proving to be highly environment friendly.

Ø      The fired tiles are graded for size, shade and then packed in automatic selection lines.

Ø      The floor tiles are palletized and shifted to the warehouse and are ready to be dispatched by trucks to be laid on the floor at an affordable price.