Large-Scale ProductionInternational CoverageProcessing Plants

Brazilian supplier Decolores has success with equipment investments

Starting in 2009, during a time of recession in the company’s principle market of North America, Decolores of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Espírito Santo, Brazil, made the decision to “double down” on its commitment to the natural stone industry by investing more heavily than ever in plant expansion. These investments have been going on continually every year since then. Today, fresh off of a record year for sales and profits, Decolores is continuing its pattern of investment, with millions of dollars of new processing equipment in the factory waiting to be installed.

This year’s expansion will feature a doubling of the diamond wire cutting and automated resining capacity. As usual, all of the equipment is state of the art, and Decolores has developed into one of the most cutting-edge slab production facilities in Brazil.

The company utilizes the latest diamond-wire technology from Pedrini for cutting blocks into slabs, along with the very latest resin and polishing technology to process the most challenging and expensive granites and quartzites. “We specialize in producing the best results from the most difficult-to-process materials,” said Gustavo Probst of Decolores.

After this year’s expansion, blocks squared by a double-wire block cutting machine will be processed on two Pedrini multi-wire saws. These machines operate as gangsaws, but with a much higher level of speed and efficiency. One of the multi-wire saws has 64 wires, and the other has 72 wires.

Additionally, equipment for finishing material will now include two fully automatic S.E.I. resin lines, which will allow for the production of one slab every two minutes, and two automatic Pedrini polishing machines, each of which is equipped with 20 heads. The facility also includes a bridge saw for cut-to-size projects.

In all, a total of 100 workers are employed by Decolores. The company expects to export 150 containers of material per month, and it has production capacity in excess of that figure.

Decolores processes a broad spectrum of materials. These include basic granites, such as Giallo Ornamental, Giallo Santa Cecilia, Giallo Vicenza and Portofino Gold. It also includes exotic granites, marbles and quartzites, such as Amarone, Artemis, Aspen granite, Atacama Black, Blue Nile, Bronzite quartzite, Cristalo quartzite, Lucent quartzite, Madre Perola quartzite, Normandy, Netuno Bordeaux, Olympic River, White Macaubas quartzite, White Pearl quartzite and Yellow River.

Decolores owns the quarry for Bronzite, a super-exotic ferric quartzite, and Artemis, a dolomite, and it has partnerships in several others. Although the majority of Decolores’ sales are in North America, business in the domestic market of Brazil has increased greatly since 2010.

In North America, the company sells primarily to distributors. Decolores’ customer list includes a large percentage of the largest and most well-known distributors in the U.S. and Canada.