New Systems and New Technologies Boost the New Development of Vietnamese Ceramics | Vietnam Ceramic Industry Summit Forum Crowned with Complete Success!

"Vietnam Ceramic Industry Summit Forum" hosted by the Vietnam Ceramic Association and co-sponsored by HLT&DLT and Guanyue Group was a resounding success at 2 pm on March 24th, 2023. The theme of event was "The Successful Route of Vietnam Ceramics Industry to Globalization". Many presentation and in-depth discussion were organized in the seminar, focusing on the domestic ceramic industry's situation, product composition, total production capacity, difficulties faced by China's ceramic industry. There were also many topics on the latest situation of global ceramic industry in the post-epidemic era, new breakthroughs in intelligent routes, how Chinese machinery brings new ideas for the whole plant upgrade scheme of Vietnamese ceramic products, and how zero-carbon combustion technology opens a new path for the global carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. About 300 people, including key government and business representatives from Vietnam's local Ministry of Construction and associations related with ceramics and building materials, attended the event. Local mainstream media related with building materials and ceramics, such as Vietnam Television, reported on the event, and Ceramic Town Weekly (CTW) gave live broadcasting.
 
As a representative of Vietnam, the President of Vietnam Ceramic Association, Guanghui DING, took the lead in delivering a speech, in which he mentioned that although the government issued Resolution No. 33/NQ-CP on March 11th, 2023, to promote the security and sustainable development of the real estate market, it was still quite a difficult year for the architectural ceramic industry in Vietnam. Therefore, about 65-70% of production capacity was expected to be explored in the entire industry, and we should also take it seriously that Vietnam's architectural ceramics products still had many shortcomings and so should continue to learn from China's architectural ceramics in technology, equipment operation, production process and other aspects to improve the quality of products, bringing benefits to Vietnamese consumers, while also promoting exports. 

Dr. Hong YIN, Secretary General of Foshan Ceramic Association, made a speech based upon data and deeply analyzed the development process of China's ceramic tile industry. Looking at the world ceramic pattern, current situation and solution of Vietnamese ceramics, Hong YIN analyzed the far-reaching influence of technology and design-guided products thoroughly and expressed his great expectations of Vietnamese ceramic industry. Dr. Yin pointed out that ceramic tile was a traditional industry, although there were significant changes taking place with various kinds of substitutes (marble, granite, artificial stone, etc.), and large-scale ceramic tiles, sintered stone and various types of plates were expanding their application in the direction of home, kitchen and bathroom customization, the ceramic tile industry was still a highly fragmented and distinctive industry and there would be no magnate in a developing country yet in the short term, so everyone had opportunities.

Furthermore, in four respects: entering a smart factory, the network architecture of smart factory, what can be brought by a smart factory, and high-performance machinery in a smart factory, Junliang WU, the Brand Director of HLT&DLT, introduced the design concept of each project of HLT&DLT enterprises in China's leading ceramic enterprises in recent years and combined HLT&DLT's core products of whole product line machinery technology to propose new ideas for the entire factory upgrading scheme of Vietnam's ceramic enterprises. Highly automated, intelligent and digital machinery could not only improve production efficiency and reduce production costs, but also realize the overall data visualization of the workshop, so that the management team could find and diagnose problems timely and make adjustments to the production process and process management. With the intelligent and digital production mode, the short-term goal is to overcome the crux of management that the rate of high-quality products is difficult to improve continuously with increasing output and more product lines, and the long-term goal is that the full set of mature production process and process management information could be shared interactively, the whole plant project could be seamlessly linked to the MES production management system, so as to achieve vertical transfixion of whole plant information, and an overall judgment of situation of the enterprise from all aspects. This would be a direction that the ceramic industry in various countries should consider when marching towards large-scale, centralized and digital production.
 
But how to achieve it exactly? By using an example of "Intelligent Production and Whole Line Engineering and Machinery Technology in White Porcelain Industry", Lingxiang YUAN, the General Manager of HLT&DLT's Southeast Asia sales territory, added that digital information was the brain center of intelligent factories and its blueprint was like constructing a high-rise building. Based on the "data architecture", "5G network" and "data security" and combined with software, hardware and data standard system, the cloud computing, Internet of Things, AR, VR and other advanced technologies were used to create an intelligent digital platform and build enterprise's own big data Business Intelligence (BI) library, so as to realize the evidence-based decision-making of the enterprise and intelligent decision-making of the green manufacturing smart factory.
 
The expert on HLT&DLT's deep processing products, Gao HE, introduced the post-kiln whole line solution, sending a signal to the industry that HLT&DLT's deep processing and post-kiln products will be grandly launched into the market. It is called another masterpiece of HLT&DLT's products in the post-epidemic era, not only enriching the product category, but also providing customers with more choices. Gao HE introduced that a complete post-kiln whole line was composed of several production processes, including a tile sorting line that came out of tile kiln and entered the firing position based on various specifications and patterns, then passed through the post-kiln tile storage line, polishing and grinding line, (grading and color separation before packaging), tile storage line, packaging line, and finally went into the warehousing system. Being a large and open platform, HLT&DLT integrates resources and provides global customers with the best turnkey solution, which is a mission to embark on a new journey. The post-kiln whole line of HLT&DLT will become a trustworthy choice for customers in the future.
 
The grand finale of the forum was presented by Professor Yibing CHENG, academician of Australian Academy of Engineering and strategic scientist of Xianhu Laboratory in Foshan, China. With the topic of "Zero-carbon Combustion Technology for High Temperature Industrial Hydrogen Ammonia and its Industrialization", Academician Cheng introduced to the Vietnamese ceramic industry the "Advanced Zero-carbon Combustion Technology for Ammonia Hydrogen Fusion" jointly developed by his doctoral team of the project, together with DLT and Oceano Ceramics, the process of producing the world's first ceramic tile with zero-carbon combustion technology and relevant working principles. Academician Cheng pointed out that the technology was a subversive innovation that could fill the gaps globally, open up a new energy technology path for the ceramic or even the whole building materials industry to achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals and provide new ideas for the achievement of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals worldwide. He also called for an acceleration of the research and development of new energy combustion technologies and an extended application of zero-carbon combustion technology in more high-temperature industries.

In the final question session, representatives from Vietnamese ceramic enterprises asked questions enthusiastically and exchanged further with relevant experts on the issues about smart factory construction, upgrading of whole production line and zero-carbon combustion technology. After three years that the normal communication activities were hindered due to the COVID-19, insiders from ceramic industry of both China and Vietnam gathered again to exchange advanced production technology and machinery, and explored ways of win-win cooperation. The activity was ended in a harmonious and dynamic atmosphere.
 
(Huaying HUANG, HLT&DLT)