Innovation, Sustainability, and the Future: Alberto Selmi Reveals the DNA of Laminam

Radio Next, journey into the new digital context, by Pepe Moder.

Our second instalment dedicated to the world of ceramics, this evening with Alberto Selmi, CEO of Laminam, here with us at Radio Next: welcome. Good evening. Good evening everybody. So Alberto, let’s start by filling in some background.

In terms of innovation and Industry 4.0, how has your company evolved in the last twenty years?

Well, our company was founded twenty years ago and let’s say that innovation and digitalization have always been core drivers for us: indeed, we consider ourselves pioneers. We invented a new product category, the large ceramic slab. We were the first in the world to produce it, and our company was grounded in digital concepts from the outset.

It’s digital in production terms, during its production phases, but above all in terms of customer relations, as we satisfy their requirements through perfect integration with the factory, which runs on Industry 4.0 lines, so in fact our business’s digitalization enables it to realize its full potential.

So let’s go more deeply into this topic, your collaboration with your customers. How does it take place? In what contexts do you work with them? On which topics? Do you cooperate with your customers so you can then produce what they expect you to deliver?

Basically, we invented this new category of product, large ceramic surfaces. In other words, we expanded small ceramic tiles to entirely new, very large formats, initially three square meters, then five square meters, with the aim of cladding any architectural form – pieces of furniture, rooms, facades, the interior of an airport. In other words, our product is perfect on any surface. Obviously, within the value chain, in the dialog with our customers, in all these areas, the digital factor is fundamental. It all starts with an idea by an architect, for example, which can now be digitalized, meaning digitally designed and put into production within the same system.

The outcome is that our integration with the world of architecture, with our customers, is now absolutely one hundred percent.

People talk a lot about collaboration, about co-creation with the customer. How do you co-create new textures, for example, or engineer new solutions within this co-creation process?

Of course, our contribution is the technological part. Meaning the traditional, chemical part of ceramics, which however is a three-thousand-year-old industry. The world’s first industrial products, like the archaeological finds from Mesopotamia from four thousand years ago.

There was no CNC back then!

There was no CNC, but the raw materials, the creativity, that’s still the same. We place it at the service of our customers – interior designers, architects, industrial producers – anyone who imagines a future that can be achieved through our product.

How is the ceramics sector evolving compared to other industries which seem, at least, to be faster in adopting innovation and technology? What’s your impression today?

I don’t think our industry is at all behind or slower than others. For example, in the last year we invented a two-millimeter-thick surface which is the world’s most sustainable ceramic or industrially produced surface. With a thickness of just two millimeters, with any graphic design, any pattern, any material or tactile effect, we can basically change the world’s skin, whether it’s a fifty-story building or just the vanity unit in your bathroom.

You’re also very active in communicating with end customers, through social media and advertising. I couldn’t say the same of a lot of tile producers. Quite the opposite, in fact. Often, companies still rely on intermediaries, working through an architect who makes a recommendation or a dealer who offers advice; for a producer, what does talking directly to the end customer mean?

I think it’s fundamental. Especially because in the last few years we’ve started to make kitchen countertops, where the top is chosen in the home itself. Often by the family, by the couple or anyone else choosing the surface for their kitchen.

So it was essential to talk to consumers, because it’s no longer just an architectural design decision; it’s also choosing the object people want to have in their kitchen, in the room where the family spends the most time. Therefore, it’s also key to talk to the actual consumer, who decides and chooses and will find that our product is easy to clean and resistant to heat, is infinitely durable and also has a tactile appeal, a familiar ‘feel’, that conveys an idea of comfort to the people who use it every day.

When a company takes this major step, moving away from communicating and thus organizing its production through dealers and starting to talk directly to the end customer, its internal organization also changes somewhat; I mean, it has to find new ways of meeting demand for small quantities, for example, for specific requirements. How is this change managed within a company?

Of course you can’t satisfy individual requests, so you have to come up with an industrial product that meets the requirements of the current trends, the demands of the moment, and conveys a sense of wellbeing to the user. So this is what we want to do, and we’re succeeding. That gives us great satisfaction.

We hear a lot about additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, and the ability to customize the product exactly as the end customer wishes, in the required quantities, for example for tiling a bathroom or to create a kitchen countertop made in a specific way. How far are we from additive manufacturing in the ceramics industry?

As far as architecture is concerned, this is already happening, in the sense that for architecture projects we’re already producing specifically for our customers, our architects, today. I think of various things we’ve done: for example, for the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, we manufactured a bespoke slab to a design by architect Mario Cucinella.

We did a wonderful job to precise specifications, and this is something we do every day. When it comes to the single piece, the single item, here we’re talking about artisan production: we can do it, but more as a hobby than as an industrial undertaking.

And what about artificial intelligence? Especially generative AI, which can give you a hand with creativity, suggesting new patterns and textures. It can provide creative input and help to create creativity in the world of ceramics, as elsewhere. How far have you got with this? And above all, how far has the market got?

I believe artificial intelligence is an amazing tool for increasing companies’ productivity. We’re all learning to use it in various contexts, especially in research, but also in what I might call routine jobs, where it can substitute for people.

In the creative area we like to engage in dialog with AI, but when it comes to our artists, our design, our inspirational spirit, we prefer to maintain some, let’s call it human software, which is also fundamental for making us distinctive. Interacting with AI always requires a high degree of personalization, and the ability to also convey information about the specific identity of Laminam and our products.

How do you see Laminam in five years’ time? And what will have changed in the interim?

The world needs sustainable products. It needs products that last over time, that reach beyond even the concept of recycling to become everlasting. So we believe that by choosing to produce extremely thin surfaces as little as two millimeters thick we are meeting this need.

This implies making a timeless product, which can potentially last for three thousand years, because ceramic items have indeed been around for three thousand years, and large surfaces that can be as big as five square meters or greater. So I think Laminam will simply be responding even better to the world’s needs and requirements, and I believe it will be bigger, with greater global coverage, and definitely a leader in what we do.

What’s the secret to managing people with new professional skills, new talents that join a company and push for change?

Well, they certainly find fertile terrain in our organization. Actually, we’re delighted to recruit young people with fresh ideas, who push us beyond our comfort zone. They’re all welcome here! In fact, I’d like to make an announcement. Anyone out there with good ideas? We’re ready and waiting.

You’ve been listening to Alberto Selmi, CEO of Laminam, talking to us here at Radio Next: our thanks to him.

“Thank you, and good evening and goodnight to everyone”

and let us join Alberto Selmi in thanking you all for being with us this evening.