Production site in Sofia, Bulgaria

Concrete block and roof tile production at Technocim

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 1 Left to right: H. Radulov, Technocim Vice President,
and H. Iliev, project manager, talking to H. Bendurski, the Hess representative for Bulgaria.

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 2 The Technocim plant layout.

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 3 Pigment batching unit.

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 4 Concrete feed via a hopper.

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 5 The Hess RH 1500 block machine.

[Foto: Becker]

(Photo/Foto: Becker)

Fig. 6 Automatic stacker with pallet storage.

(Photo/Foto: Becker)

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 7 The plate conveyor.

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 8 Concrete feed for roof tile production.

[Foto: Becker]

Fig. 9 Carousel with ejector.

Fig. 10 Manual production of custom tiles.

Fig. 11 Semi-automatic extruder for verge tiles.

Significant amounts have been spent in the accession countries in the course of the EU enlargement process, both by local and foreign investors. The German industry has benefited from the resulting exports. Technocim headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria, a subsidiary of Balkanstroj, has also been supplied by foreign equipment manufacturers, such as Schlosser-Pfeiffer, Hess and Abece.

The Bulgarian market

Bulgaria is an emerging EU member state. The market for concrete roof tiles is still in its infancy, which also applies to the paving block and curb segment. The latter is being served by three major producers using German manufacturing equipment, among them Technocim. In addition, there are up to 100 “garage operations”, which are small family-run businesses with manual production processes or very small machines with a low degree of automation.

Unlike in Germany and other countries, there is no organization or association of producers yet, which makes it difficult to...