Situated in the westernmost city of Germany, Alpha Ceramics GmbH in Aachen (ACA) offers a broad range of services for the ceramic industry and related sectors such as glass, refractory, concrete, powder metallurgy, and environmental technology. ACA, a subsidiary of Laeis GmbH (see About Company), provides testing capacity for new customers as well as in-house process development and optimization. State-of-the-art production scale machinery and equipment for material preparation, shaping, and thermal treatment are available on site.

ACA offers its R&D and testing services to third parties, and the equipment is also available for direct toll productions. This possibility allows international customers to have newly developed products manufactured at ACA for a limited time, for example to test market acceptance or to bridge a time gap until a production plant comes online. Products that are required only in small lots and for which a separate production plant would not be economical can be supplied recurrently on call order. Emphasis of development activities at ACA focuses on applications. Through regular interaction with universities and other R&D institutions, however, new basic research developments also are integrated continuously. In addition, proprietary niche products are developed and directly marketed, especially various types of kiln furniture ranging from cordierite stacking aids to highly sophisticated mullite–corundum pusher plates for rapid-firing purposes.