Five ills of the hottest ceramic tile industry nee

The five ills of the ceramic tile industry need to be eradicated

the development of the ceramic tile industry is still inseparable from the word "innovation". In recent years, the world's real estate industry has developed rapidly, making the production and consumption of ceramic tiles in the world have achieved great development. Because Chinese ceramic tile products have many varieties, large quantities, good quality, complete high, medium and low-grade products, large options and appropriate prices, many countries and regions in the world are very fond of Chinese ceramic tile products, and the proportion of Chinese ceramic tiles in the international market is increasing to avoid affecting the normal work of equipment. With the unprecedented development of China's real estate industry in recent years, there is a huge market demand for building walls and floor tiles associated with real estate

with the rapid development of China's ceramic production process and technology, personalized products are prominent in the ceramic tile market, and the product development begins to trend towards high-end. At present, while aiming at the high-end market and emphasizing the adjustment of product structure and the improvement of product added value, Chinese ceramic tile enterprises also take into account the overall interests of the industry, and achieve sustainable development through efforts to improve the technical content of products, increase independent innovation, cultivate independent brands and other measures. Now we think and summarize the current situation of our domestic ceramic tile industry, and put forward six concepts that the industry needs to change

first, "thick tiles are real"

for a long time, the competition in the market has taken "thick" as the competitive advantage to attack competitors. Coupled with people's traditional thinking of "more is better", people generally believe that "thick tiles are good, real and not Jerry built"

in fact, ceramic tile products belong to surface decoration materials, which are artistic, decorative and surface protective industrial products. What people really use is its surface decoration effect. As long as its destructive strength and bearing capacity meet the actual use requirements, it can fully distribute the use of ceramic tile products

compared with natural stone, ceramic tiles have many advantages, such as high strength, light weight, aging resistance, corrosion resistance, good color consistency and so on. Just because they are fired at high temperature, the ability of ceramic tiles with the same thickness to resist damage is much higher than that of stone, and the better the sintering degree of ceramic tile products, the higher the ability to resist damage. This is the highlight of ceramic tiles different from natural stone, which does not need the "sense of massiness" of natural stone

moreover, the thicker the ceramic tile, the more difficult the sintering of the product is, and the degree of sintering will become worse in the same cycle, but its ability to resist damage will become worse, which is determined by the ceramic tile firing process. In addition to consuming more raw materials, thick ceramic tiles also need to consume more energy to achieve a qualified sintering degree, which is not in line with the national policy of "energy conservation, resource conservation and emission reduction" that the country is vigorously advocating. Therefore, in order to achieve sustainable development and low-carbon development in the ceramic industry, ceramic tile thinning is an inevitable trend. All people in the industry are called on to publicize to social consumers that "ceramic tiles are not the thicker the better", "ceramic tiles can be thinner", especially our marketing personnel, as the disseminator of ceramic tile culture, must instill the concept and cognition of "ceramic tile thinning" into consumers

second, "white tiles are high-end products"

in the market, the "whiter, higher grade" of ceramic tile bodies has become the mainstream. The reason is from the misleading of the industry itself to consumers. Dating back to the 1980s and 1990s, foreign high-end ceramic tile products imported from Italy and Spain are all red billets, and consumers are willing to spend high prices to buy and use, enjoying high-end consumption. In the 21st century, the domestic market has gradually turned to white tiles, and the market also takes "white" as a competitive advantage to suppress imported products and crack down on competitors, so that consumers gradually form the concept and cognition that "white tiles are high-end products"

as mentioned earlier, ceramic tile products are surface decorative materials. It is the ceramic tile surface layer that really plays a decorative role. As long as the strength, water absorption and other properties of the green body meet the requirements of the product standard, and the green body layer does not affect the color of the surface layer, what if the green body is white, red and black? Who can see the color of the bottom green body layer after the ceramic tile is paved. Therefore, "the whiter the ceramic tile body, the higher the grade" is purely a sin of the industry. Now it is difficult to change consumers' consumption concept of white tiles

with the continuous reduction and depletion of raw materials for white tiles, as well as the cleaner production of the industry, the development of circular economy and the policy requirements for the comprehensive utilization of mine resources, ceramic tile products must jump out of the confinement of "white tiles", expand the scope of use of raw materials, make full use of red mud and low-quality sand mud from a wide range of sources, and turn to the development of red and grey tile products to truly realize zero emission of waste residue from ceramic tile production. This requires all-round cooperation and cooperation within the industry, and the joint guidance of enterprises, governments and industry associations to widely publicize from the aspects of standard formulation, policy publicity and marketing. In particular, the sales teams of enterprises, as the disseminators of ceramic tile culture, should positively disseminate and publicize non white and red ceramic tile products. At the same time, enterprises should do a good job in the product design of body layer and surface decoration layer, gradually improve the grade of non blank products, and gradually change the "blank" complex of consumers

III. "no patent achievements in the ceramic tile industry"

the ceramic tile industry is a traditional industry with a high degree of technological maturity, involving a wide range of technical materials such as textbooks, journals, newspapers, magazines, papers and patents. In the past 30 years, the development of the ceramic tile industry itself is the introduction, imitation and improvement of foreign ceramic tile technology and equipment. Imitation and improvement has become the habit of industry development. Under this environment and conditions, there are few patented technological innovations, and fewer patented technologies with original and protective value

currently applied and authorized patented technologies are basically combined innovation or partial innovation, and the protection scope of innovation points is relatively narrow. What's more, the industry's cognition of patents is still very vague, with poor patent knowledge and weak patent awareness. Therefore, industry personnel generally believe that "there are no patent achievements in the ceramic tile industry"

according to China's patent law, patents themselves have priority and exclusivity. For patented technologies, those who apply for them first belong to those who apply for them. Patented technologies with great technical difficulties are generally protected by technical secrets first, and then applied for patent protection. Only patented technologies that can be understood and imitated easily by imitation and stabbing through a layer of paper have priority to apply for patents for protection. This is the game rule of patent protection. At present, many industry bosses do not understand the rules of the game. Once an infringement occurs, they always fight for their face with invalidity and litigation first, and refuse to admit the fact of infringement

there are not patent achievements in the industry, such as the isostatic pressing roller patented technology of the Ceramic Research Institute, the Yuhuashi patented technology of osheno, and the Dongpeng Dongshi patented technology, which are all novel and creative patented technologies. However, under the current domestic legal environment, the punishment of infringement is too small, the cost of safeguarding rights is too high, and the income is too low, resulting in the difficulty of patent protection and the unsatisfactory effect of safeguarding rights, Let the industry think that patents cannot be protected, and the application for patents has little effect, and further believe that "there is no patent in the ceramic tile industry"

then I have to ask, there are also many patents applied for and authorized in our industry. Are they invalid patents? Ceramic tile enterprises are still trying to apply for patents and claim how many patents they have. Why do I think the industry needs to reflect on it? Industry associations and the government should come forward to rectify the patent order of the ceramic tile industry.

IV "Product design is only the appearance design of color and texture matching"

at present, the industry generally separates technological innovation from product design, and believes that technological innovation lies in the R & D innovation of new processes, new materials and new equipment, while product design is only the design creativity of product color, specification, shape and texture matching

in fact, "technological innovation is the core of product design, and product design is the embodiment of the implementation of technological innovation", that is, the combination of technological innovation and product design is a complete innovation. Without technological innovation and progress, product design can only stay on the original technological platform and change, unable to achieve unique creativity, formulate scientific and fair fault handling scheme design and value embodiment; With technological innovation, without the implementation and design of innovative products, the scope of utilization of technology is still subject to many restrictions, and the added value of innovation cannot be reflected. Therefore, technological innovation and product design cannot be separated

product design includes product appearance design, product technology design, product application design and product culture design. Among them, product appearance design includes the design contents of specification and size, shape, surface effect, color and texture matching; Product technical design includes the design of product material selection, formula, process flow, production equipment, product function and performance, product inspection methods and standards, product intellectual property rights and other aspects; Product application design includes the design of product application environment, decoration style, construction method, application precautions, etc; Product cultural design includes cultural concept, cultural publicity, packaging logo, trademark and theme promotion

therefore, the scope of product design is very wide, which implies the requirements of technological innovation, and ultimately comes down to the embodiment of value

v. "the thinner the ceramic tile products, the better"

at the current stage of development of the industry, ceramic tile thinning is an inevitable trend of industry development, which is not only in line with the macro policies of energy conservation, source conservation, emission reduction and low carbon, but also in line with the needs of sustainable development of the industry and reducing production costs. However, it does not mean that the thinner the ceramic tile product is, the better. The thinner the ceramic tile is, it is beneficial to the sintering performance, reduces the energy consumption and resource consumption, and the fracture modulus of the product is greatly increased, but the damage strength will still decrease, that is, its bearing capacity and damage resistance will decline, which is a fatal change

because ceramic tile products are too thin, their application environment requirements are high, and more other auxiliary supporting materials are required, which will lead to harsh application conditions, increased application costs, increased application energy consumption or carbon emissions. Therefore, how thin is the ceramic tile? The thinking of "carbon footprint" inspires us to analyze and balance the cost, advantages and disadvantages, total carbon emissions and other aspects in the whole life cycle of ceramic tile production and application, so as to find out the best thickness, rather than considering the advantages of ceramic tile sheet in the production stage

therefore, I believe that ceramic tile products are not the thinner the better, but there is an optimal thickness range, and the optimal thickness of different specifications is also different