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Braun Beton, a family-owned business founded in 1964 and now run by the second generation, has successfully expanded its existing coating line in collaboration with BÜRKLE. With approximately 20 employees, the company specializes in garden and patio slabs and supplies specialty building material retailers in southern Germany as well as in neighboring markets such as Alsace, Switzerland, and Austria.
The modernized line produces digitally printed concrete slabs, and Braun Beton has a clear goal with this project: to win over customers with high-quality, innovative products and a clear commitment to quality. With the new line, the company simultaneously switched to UV coatings to further enhance surface quality and durability and to noticeably improve maintenance properties for the end customer. “As specialists, we must deliver uncompromising quality with every slab. By switching to UV coatings, we’re achieving significantly better surface performance and a noticeably easier-to-maintain solution for our customers’ daily lives,” says Daniel Braun, Managing Director of Braun Beton, describing the idea behind the project.
Braun Beton specializes in the industrial production of high-quality concrete elements such as slabs, steps, and customized solutions for landscaping and construction projects. With a strong focus on quality, durability, and sustainable production, the company is positioned as a reliable partner for demanding applications.
This technological leap forward needed to not only look good on paper but, above all, run reliably in day-to-day production and deliver consistently reproducible results. From the very beginning, the concept was therefore closely coordinated with the technology experts at BÜRKLE to ensure that the new solution fits perfectly with the intended processes. “Braun Beton had a clear goal in mind. Currently, the system is still operated by several employees. In the long term, however, the goal is to operate the entire finishing and coating system, including quality control, with just two people. Early consultation with the coating team provided the best foundation for developing a solution that runs stably in production over the long term,” explains Patrick Lenz, Sales Manager at BÜRKLE, describing the project’s starting point.
Precision over 30 meters: The new process chain in action
The expanded system follows a continuous process chain over a total length of approximately 30 meters. It operates at a feed speed of 5 meters per minute and is designed for a working width of 1,300 millimeters. The process begins with sensor-controlled IR preheating, which ensures precise temperature control of the parts through automatic temperature regulation. After applying an aqueous primer, the digital print undergoes UV curing. Subsequently, two layers of topcoat are applied, which reliably protect the surface against weathering and contamination and give the products a defined texture and slip resistance. Both layers of coating are intermediate-cured and finally cured using energy-efficient UV lamps.
In addition to improving quality, the focus was also on expanding production capacity. Braun Beton has gradually expanded the coating process over the years, so that today three panels can be coated simultaneously. “We started with one panel, then it became two, and now we’re at three products side by side. This gives us significantly more flexibility because we can respond more quickly to what the warehouse and customers actually need,” explains Daniel Braun, outlining the benefits.
The fact that the expansion could be implemented so smoothly was also due to the company’s forward-thinking planning. Since Braun Beton had already laid the groundwork during the construction of the new facility ten years ago, no structural modifications to the building were necessary. This infrastructural foundation also supports the long-term goal of operating the plant highly efficiently with just two people once it reaches its final configuration. The concept also proves to be extremely practical in terms of ongoing maintenance. Maintenance and cleaning are organized in such a way that, once production ends, only the coating needs to be flushed out of the roller and return line. “Especially when expanding an existing plant, clean interfaces are crucial for a quick production start. Thanks to close coordination among all partners, we were able to resume production in a planned and efficient manner,” says Philipp Jauch, project manager at BÜRKLE, highlighting the structured ramp-up.