ABSTRACT
Inside Summitville-Carolina's new manufacturing plant, perched atop a knoll just off an interstate frontage road in western North Carolina, everything seems to be moving: assembly belts, pick-and-place robots, automated material carts, and people. Yet there is little noise. Computers control the pressing of the raw material into bisques that are passed through the kilns, glazed, and output as high-quality finished ceramic wall and floor tiles. The tiles then are sorted, inspected, handled, packaged, and moved by sophisticated equipment that operates over tracks that crisscross the plant. Operators watch for anomalies in the products or processes that signal problems to be solved. With the arrival of another piece of inspection equipment from Italy, visual inspection will become less necessary. Workers are quick to point out that the Italian model is less reliable and requires more maintenance than the American saw, but the Italian saw is capable of cutting to much closer tolerances.
