CEIA Brand Guidelines: The Arezzo Maker of Walk-Through Metal Detectors, Since 1962

A detector for fabric, near Arezzo.

CEIA stands for Costruzioni Elettroniche Industriali Automatismi, and the company is based at Viciomaggio, in the province of Arezzo in Tuscany. Its history page dates the start to 1962, when it began making metal detectors for the textile industry, designed to find small quantities of metal in fabric and so protect the production machinery; its company profile describes that first detector as patented. Stadium Tech Report noted in May 2022 that everyone calls the company by its acronym, pronounced “CHEY-ah.”

From cloth the business moved into other industries. The company says that in 1968 it began developing and producing industrial metal detectors, together with ultrasonic cleaning machines for the gold and silversmith trades, and its profile adds galvanic power supplies for the same sector.

Security came next. In 1975, the company says, growing demand for security at the entrances of airports and banks led it to start a major research and development programme, and it became a major manufacturer of walk-through and portable metal detectors for weapons carried on a person. It says it patented its first walk-through metal detector in 1979, with microcomputer-based analysis, and the first column-type gate in 1982; in 1988 it introduced the PMD1, a multi-zone walk-through detector with a display showing where metal sits along the full height of a person.

The statutory notice on its website today names C.E.I.A. S.p.A. as a single-shareholder company under the direction and coordination of CEIA S.r.l., and Stadium Tech Report described CEIA as privately held in 2022.

Arches, pillars and conveyors.

CEIA’s signature object is the walk-through arch. The company says it patented the elliptical column walk-through metal detector in 1996, a shape it describes as efficient and aesthetically pleasing enough for government agencies and private corporations, and that its 02PN20 detector was selected and certified for North American airports in 2002, after security standards were tightened following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Its later aviation products include the SAMD shoe analyser of 2005, the EMA scanner for bottled liquids, which the company says was certified for airports in 2010, and the EMIS screening device for non-metallic cargo, which it says was approved for airports in 2011 and joined by a mail version, EMIS-MAIL, certified for mail inspection in 2014. In 2015 came SAMDEX, a shoe scanner for metal and explosives that the company calls the first equipment able to check both without passengers taking off their shoes.

The newest public-facing line is OPENGATE, a pair of free-standing, self-powered pillars for screening people carrying bags in crowded public places. Stadium Tech Report, profiling it in May 2022, described two thin towers per gate, wireless and light enough to move, with audio and light signals from the towers, and named Empower Field at Mile High in Denver and Ohio Stadium among the venues using it. The American business is a subsidiary, CEIA USA, which its brochure places in Hudson, Ohio.

Security is only one division. CEIA’s website lists industrial metal detectors for food, pharmaceutical, textile, mining and plastics production, including the THS conveyor systems; induction heating generators, which it says it began developing in 1990; ground-search detectors, for which it says the United Nations selected it in 2002 as a supplier for humanitarian demining in Afghanistan and other regions; detectors for healthcare settings; and radar anticollision telemeters.

The history page fills in the industrial side. In 1994 CEIA began producing its THS series of industrial metal detectors, built in stainless steel throughout; in 1997, it says, it developed underground metal detection at the request of several international agencies; and in 2008 it installed its first loss-prevention system, a metal detector meant to stop valuable metal items leaving production plants and distribution centres, and introduced a detector with a linear antenna array for submersible vehicles working at depths of up to 300 metres. In 2019 it added ground-search models combining ground-penetrating radar with metal detection.

Screening and identity hardware.

Security screening and identity hardware is mostly seen in passing: the X-ray tunnel at an airport checkpoint, the arch a traveller walks through, the grey trays that slide back along a roller track. The companies that make this equipment sell to airports, customs services, border agencies, banks and governments rather than to the public, and their brands are built for procurement teams, regulators and trade-fair visitors.

Their imagery follows the equipment. Websites and brochures show security lanes with scanner tunnels and conveyor belts, walk-through metal detectors, cargo portals and gantries that a lorry drives through, and the operator screens on which bags appear as layered X-ray images. Identity makers work at a different scale: card printers small enough for an office desk, and the production lines on which passports, bank cards and ID cards are made and personalised.

Much of the business is about approvals and contracts. Makers name the regulators whose lists or standards their machines appear on, such as the US Transportation Security Administration or the European Civil Aviation Conference, and announce orders airport by airport and agency by agency. New products are shown at trade fairs such as Passenger Terminal Expo for airport equipment and Security Essen in Germany, where screening, access-control and identity companies exhibit side by side.

Ownership in this field changes often. Some of the makers in this guide were built from acquisitions or sit inside larger listed groups, and some have changed hands recently: Smiths Detection passed from Smiths Group to CVC Capital Partners in June 2026. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it and where it says its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Engineering, testing and production under one roof.

CEIA presents itself as an engineering company. Its website says research and development, engineering and production are carried out entirely in-house, and that it runs a worldwide assistance network and certification training for the people who use and maintain its equipment. It also operates an electromagnetic compatibility testing laboratory, LACE, which the company says is accredited to the ISO 17025:2017 standard; its history page says the laboratory was recognised by the government as a competent body for electromagnetic compatibility in 1998, and that the company’s quality system gained ISO 9001 certification in 1996.

The company’s brochures name the standards each security product is tested against: ECAC standards for aviation equipment, TSA qualification for some walk-through detectors, and the US National Institute of Justice standard 0601.02 for detectors used in law enforcement and correctional facilities. Its product names lean on capitals and registered marks, such as JANUS, SAMDEX and OPENGATE, and on alphanumeric model codes such as 02PN20 and PMD2 Plus.

For a design guide, CEIA shows how one object, the walk-through arch, can become the face of a brand across airports, prisons and stadiums. Compare Nuctech and Rapiscan Systems, two other makers of screening equipment. For this guide we use graphite, a warm white and a Tuscan ochre with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep CEIA’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.