Glass april 2015

April 2015 | Vol. 38 No.4

FRENCH FOCUS MEXICAN SPOTLIGHT INDIAN OVERVIEW

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Glass International April 2015

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Contents

FRENCH FOCUS MEXICAN SPOTLIGHT INDIAN OVERVIEW

International News

Glassman preview 16 Glassman Europe 2015: Lyon

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18 Mexico profile: Gerresheimer 20 Mexico profile: Interglass

Glass International April 2015

20

BUMPER GLASSMAN EUROPE SHOW ISSUE

Front cover image courtesy of Pennine Industrial Equipment (UK) www.pennine.org

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13 French profile: Bresle Valley

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Editor’s Comment

10 French profile: Saint-Gobain

April 2015 Vol.38 No.4

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23 26 28 31

India Glasspex India gets the thumbs up India profile: Piramal Glass Energy efficiency in India Shining a light on black glass

33 38 42 45 47 49 51

French supplement French overview Pochet du Courval O-I France Iris Inspection Machines Tiama MSC & SGCC SGD ERMI

54 A study in the use of slag in a float glass melting furnace 57 Glassman Europe Catalogue: Lyon

26

Plus find us on Linked-In and Twitter.

@Glass_Int

Technical matters 76 How to rescue your furnace 78 Supplier profile: FIC (UK) Limited 80 Impact of gas on glass melting 84 A new chapter of batch charging 87 Ardagh gears up for UK recycling success 89 Glass is all stacked up 91 What does good performance look like?

97 Pennine in double launch

76

Inspection 93 Pallet audit and defect tracking 94 Hot end: Where quality is made 95 Top shelf challenges at the cold end 98 Dual camera for hot end inspection 100 SPT2 system applies the pressure 101 A small company with a big vision 103 Diary

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71 History 72 British Glass 74 Glass personality profile: Horn CEO

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Editor’s comment

Greg Morris

www.glass-international.com Editor: Greg Morris Tel: +44 (0)1737 855132 Email: gregmorris@quartzltd.com Editorial Assistant: Sally Roberts Tel: +44 (0)1737 855154 Email: sallyroberts@quartzltd.com Designer: Annie Baker Tel: +44 (0)1737 855130 Email: anniebaker@quartzltd.com

A truly global business

www.glass-international.com

W

elcome to the April 2015 issue of Glass International where we feel we have a truly international edition this month.

The Glassman Europe exhibition and conference in Lyon, France is now only weeks away so our headline features are related to all things French. This year is the 350th anniversary of French global glass group Saint-Gobain and we take a look back at some of the key points in the company’s varied history.

Recent FEVE data shows that French container glass production increased by 2.2% in 2014. One of the country’s glass production hubs since the 15th century has been the Bresle Valley in the Normandy region. We provide an overview of the region and explain why it is such an important glassmaking area.

In recent months we have published a selection of French-based features that have focused on some of the main French companies. We have compiled these, plus a few extra company overviews, into a concise French supplement that starts on page 33.

Looking further ahead, the Glassman Latin America event takes place in Guadalajara in Mexico in September. We begin the first of a selection of Mexican company overviews with an insight into Gerresheimer’s pharmaceutical glass manufacturing site in Queretaro. We also spoke to Guadalajara-based Interglass, which has expanded its worldwide pres-

ence to more than 30 countries.

Mexico has been in the news in recent months and this perhaps reflects its growing influence in the glassmaking industry. In this issue’s news pages, Heye International states that a dozen of its production lines will go into operation in Central and South America this year.

Perhaps the biggest news has been the recent partnership between O-I and Constellation Brands. The two will operate a glass container production plant in Nava, Mexico, that they recently bought from Anheuser-Busch InBev. The plant operates under the name IVC and produces bottles exclusively for Constellation’s adjacent brewery, which makes beers including Corona Extra, Corona Light and Modelo Especial.

Meanwhile, the Glasspex India exhibition took place in Mumbai in March and we have a review of the event plus a company profile on India’s Piramal Glass to kick-off a mini India profile in this issue.

Elsewhere we have our usual mix of news, views and technical papers. This includes a number of inspection-based articles from companies including Bucher Emhart Glass, Xpar Vision and Vertech’.

We look forward to meeting you at Glassman Europe in Lyon!

Greg Morris Editor gregmorris@quartzltd.com

Sales Manager: Jeremy Fordrey Tel: +44 (0)1737 855133 Email: jeremyfordrey@quartzltd.com Productive Executive: Martin Lawrence Subscriptions Tel: +44 (0)1737 855023 Fax: +44 (0)1737 855034 Email: subscriptions@quartzltd.com Published by Quartz Business Media Ltd, Quartz House, 20 Clarendon Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 1QX, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1737 855000. Fax: +44 (0)1737 855034.

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International News

NEWS IN BRIEF

Heye safety workshop before Glassman Europe

O-I has converted a conventional air-fuel glass furnace to oxy-fuel using Praxair’s combustion technology.

Praxair will supply gaseous oxygen to the 180-tons per day, non-cryogenic glass plant located in Oklahoma, USA (pictured top).

Oxy-fuel combustion uses oxygen rather than air to enhance combustion, improve energy efficiency in the glass melting process and reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.

In addition to supplying the

oxygen, Praxair has provided the oxy-fuel combustion flow control skids and installed its dilute oxygen combustion Wide Flame Burner technology, designed to minimise furnace emissions and reduce furnace crown deterioration.

Pravin Mathur, Executive Director for Praxair’s Global Market Development organisation said: “Our technology will provide an efficient and reliable supply of oxygen and oxy-fuel combustion to O-I, increasing its productivity and

improving the environmental performance of its manufacturing processes.”

Will Besancon, O-I project manager, said: “Praxair’s extensive technical and process experience with oxy-fuel glass furnaces played a key role in helping us design and start up our newest furnace.”

The US container glass industry manufactures approximately 10 million tonnes of glass annually.

All set for Glassman Europe in Lyon The Glassman Europe exhibition and conference returns to Lyon, France on 6-7 May. For more than 25 years Glassman has provided a dedicated platform for glass packaging and container manufacturers and suppliers to meet, do business, network and

learn about the latest technology and techniques.

There is a wealth of new features for 2015, including the VIP lounge where exhibitors can invite their guests to have private meetings with them.

Glassman Europe 2015 is ready and set to offer glass pro-

fessionals a superb environment to help prepare leading players for the business and environmental challenges that lay ahead.

See our French supplement beginning on page 33 and the Glassman Europe catalogue that starts on page 57.

GTS joins ICG technical committee Glass Technology Services Ltd (GTS) has joined the International Commission on Glass’ (ICG) technical committee (TC12) for pharmaceutical packaging.

The aim is to share knowl-

edge and experience in dealing with a wide range of pharmaceutical glassware, and exchange understanding and skills with a wider group of peers and technical experts.

The overall aim of the technical committee is to work collaboratively to increase understanding and standards and, ultimately, prevent the ‘phenomena’ of glass surface delamination.

FEVE elects Vitaliano Torno as President

Vitaliano Torno, Managing Director of O-I Europe, has been elected President of FEVE, the European Container Glass Federation.

Vitaliano Torno was appointed as managing director of O-I Europe on 20 January 2015, leading the company’s largest region.

The FEVE Board also elected Niall Wall, CEO of Ardagh Group, as VicePresident of FEVE. Mr Wall said: “Vitaliano is a glass industry veteran who knows the industry very well.

A great attribute for his new role as FEVE President.”

AGC Europe to close Athus plant

AGC Glass Europe will close its Athus, Belgium plant, in a move that will result in mass redundancies.

The plant specialises in the production of laminated glass for the construction industry and is located in the south of the country.

AGC stated the plant is faced with the dual problem of a lack of industrial integration coupled with its remote location in terms of proximity to its customers.

It also stated that contracting demand and falling prices had negatively affected the laminated glass market.

VISIT: www.glass-international.com – For daily news updates and regular features

www.glass-international.com

Praxair converts O-I furnace

Heye International’s safety workshop in Lyon is titled Safety for the Plant – Safety for the Consumer.

The event takes place on the 5th May, the day before the Glassman Europe event.

Heye International and Iris Inspection Machines will both participate independently at the Glassman Europe exhibition, which returns to Cité de Congrès, Lyon, France on 6-7 May 2015.

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International News

NEWS IN BRIEF

SGD appointment

SGD Group has promoted Thomas Riou to the position of Europe and North America Managing Director for its Perfumery and Cosmetic business.

Mr Riou, who was already managing the group’s European activities, will also lead those in North America in order to develop synergies on both sides of the Atlantic.

New CEO at Vertech’

Ulas Topal, formerly Commercial Director at Vertech’, was recently named CEO of Vertech’.

Mr Topal takes over from Philippe Bierry, owner of Vertech’, who is now dedicated to financial management as well as the development of new markets.

Iris opens Brazilian site

Inspection group Iris Inspection machines has established a technical aftersales operation in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

There are currently more than 20 Evolution inspection machines operating successfully throughout the Latin America region, and another 20 machines are scheduled for delivery in 2015.

According to Iris’s CEO, Jean Luc Logel, sales opportunities in Latin America are encouraging, in line with the industry’s production capacity growth estimates.

www.glass-international.com

PPG to close Iowa plant

PPG Industries will reportedly close its Burlington, Iowa plant in May, affecting the jobs of 29 employees.

The plant manufactures toughened flat glass as well as custom annealed glass for the architectural and solar markets.

The closure of the plant has been attributed to the loss of PPG’s Illinois, USA plant last year, which supplied the Burlington plant with most of the raw glass it needed.

Employees affected by the closure can transfer to other PPG manufacturing plants in Pennsylvania and Texas.

Phoenix Award winner 2015 Mr Surasak Decharin of Bangkok Glass has been selected to be the 45th recipient of the Phoenix Award ‘Glass Person of the Year 2015’.

Since joining Bangkok Glass in September 1981, Surasak Decharin has spent more than 33 years of his professional career with the company.

After being appointed by the Board of Directors to the role of Director and President back in August 2000 he has been responsible for the company’s rapid but solid growth

and expansion, from a single 150-tonne furnace operation to the curreant 13 furnaces with 40 production lines.

Under his leadership, Bangkok Glass has not only become the number one glass manufacturer in Thailand but has also grown to be one of the largest players in the region. The Phoenix Award Committee said it congratulated and acknowledged Mr Surasak Decharin’s achievement in earning the title of ‘Phoenix Award Glass Person of the Year 2015’.

Tiama and Imavision in China Tiama, a provider of process and quality control equipment for hollow glass, has signed a joint venture partnership with Daheng Group-Imavision, a major player in image processing devices and appli-

cations.

This venture combines Tiama’s experience in glass containers with Daheng’s expertise in developing inspection solutions. Chinese container glass volume already repre-

sents close to 20% of worldwide demand.

The partnership will help to address not only this fast growing market, but also unsaturated markets for inspection and control machines.

O-I wins $455M compensation O-I’s Dutch subsidiary, OI European Group (OIEG), has won an international arbitration against Venezuela as a result of the country nationalising two of its plants in 2010.

OIEG has been awarded more than $455 million for what was deemed Venezuela’s unlawful expropriation of OIEG’s two plants, although it remains unsure as to when it will receive payment.

The award was issued by a

tribunal from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

International law requires Venezuela to pay OIEG the amounts due, although the country is in the midst of a severe recession and may seek to annul or delay the payment.

The company has said that if Venezuela fails to meet its obligations, OIEG will seek to enforce the award against Venezuela’s assets around the

world or find alternative measures of redress.

The tribunal found that Venezuela violated its obligations under a 1991 bilateral investment treaty between the Netherlands and Venezuela, and awarded OIEG more than $372 million in compensation plus interest which, calculated to date, exceeds $84 million.

The tribunal also awarded costs and legal fees to OIEG.

Beatson Clark launches website UK manufacturer Beatson Clark has launched a new dedicated website and Twitter channel aimed at the craft beer sector.

The website, www.beer-bottles.co.uk, has been launched to showcase Beatson Clark’s expertise in manufacturing glass bottles which dates back

more than two centuries.

The site explains how Beatson Clark can provide unique and cost-effective beer bottles featuring bespoke designs.

Be first with the news! VISIT: www.glass-international.com for daily news updates

4 Glass International April 2015

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International News

FEVE: EU container glass production ‘solid’ growth The European container glass industry had solid growth in 2014, according to recent FEVE data.

In the EU28, production volume increased by 1.6% and more than 22 million tons or some 50 billion glass containers were sold to customers inside and outside EU markets.

All EU countries recorded positive growth although at different paces. Poland posted a 7.4% increase - the highest in the EU region. Growth in the South-East area (2.9%), France (2.2) and the North-Central area (2.1%)

were above the EU average.

Outside the EU, Turkey recorded a 14.8% growth compared to the previous year. The FEVE data refers to container glass for food and drink as well as to flacons for perfumery, cosmetics and pharmaceutical sectors.

FEVE President Vitaliano Torno said: “These figures are even more remarkable when we consider EU consumption shrinking and the deflation risk in most of the EU countries.

“Glass packaging remains the preferred choice for customers who want to

add value to their product, to communicate its quality and safety to consumers.”

The industry invests up to €610 million a year – or 10% of yearly operational costs – to innovate and maintain a European-wide network of 162 EU plants and some 125,000 direct and indirect jobs.

The industry has a positive impact on Europe’s trade balance of €21 billion for products primarily packed in glass.

The FEVE table below shows production of the last four years and 2014 growth by country.

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Heye strengthens position in Central and South America A dozen Heye International production lines will go into operation in Central and South America this year.

The container glass production specialist has established dedicated sales and service experts in Mexico and Brazil in recent years who have formed long-term partnerships with glass packaging man-

ufacturers in the region.

This year a dozen production lines will go into operation with Heye’s hot end forming equipment and cold end inspection machines.

An example of the company’s transfer technology expertise can be found in Mexico where a production line overhaul and upgrade, as well as cold end

technology, were designed and supplied to the same company.

Further orders are anticipated from Latin America as domestic glass packaging grows and becomes more sophisticated. *Glassman Latin America takes place at Expo Guadalajara, in Guadalajara, Mexico on September 22 & 23.

Glass International April 2015

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International News

NEWS IN BRIEF

Philippines group expands into Australia

Philippines-based group San Miguel Yamamura Packaging International (SMYP) has completed the acquisition of Australia’s wine cork and cap maker, Vinocor Worldwide.

This is the second acquisition of an Australian packaging company by San Miguel’s international packaging unit.

SMYP is the largest packaging company in the Philippines and operates facilities in China, Malaysia and Vietnam.

SMYPC is a joint venture of San Miguel and Japan’s Nihon Yamamura Glass.

Domestic containers boost Vitro’s Q4 sales

Vitro’s fourth quarter results for 2014 (Q4 2014) showed consolidated sales rose for the fifth consecutive year, mainly due to a strong performance in its glass container unit.

Sales growth was primarily driven by sales in the domestic beer, soft drinks, and food categories.

Domestic beer sales were strengthened due to the first sales to Constellation, as per the contract entered into in 2014.

Bohle CEO resigns

The CEO of Bohle, Dr. Heinrich Ostendarp, has resigned.

The company’s Chief Operating Officer, Arne Kloefkorn, will take over his duties as the sole Director until a decision has been made regarding Dr. Ostendarp’s successor.

www.glass-international.com

Allied Glass appoints Business Director

Allied Glass Containers has appointed Jonathan Culley to the role of Business Development Director.

In his role, Jonathan will be responsible for building customer relationships, looking to form collaborations to ensure that Allied continues to support customers by delivering an enhanced level of service.

SGD launches latest version of Infinite Glass French glassmaker SGD has introduced the latest version of its Infinite Glass, which is composed of 90% recycled materials.

The first version of Infinite Glass, launched in 2008, was composed of 100% recycled household glass.

The 2015 version is composed of 65% factory cullet, 25% recycled post consumer glass and 10% virgin mineral raw material (sand, sodium, limestone).

The Infinite Glass Neo thus contains 90% recycled materials, and no longer has the slight green tint of the initial version.

“We only use white post-consumer recycled glass that we buy from a recycling scheme sorting the differ-

ent types of glass,” explains Gaëlle Verjus, International Marketing Manager Perfumery & Cosmetics at SGD. The result is an extra-white glass that meets the demanding transparency and brilliance aesthetic requirements of beauty products makers.

SGD estimates that per 1

million 200g glass bottles made from Infinite Glass carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by approximately 13%, power consumption is reduced by approximately 13%, and there is a reduction of 34 tonnes of sand consumption and 1.7 tonnes of limestone consumption.

Nasir Float Glass signs 600t/d production project with CTIEC Bengal company Nasir Float Glass Industries has signed a contract with China Triumph International Engineering Company (CTIEC) for the construction of a 600t/d float glass production line.

CTIEC has completed several projects for Nasir since 2002. These are a 250t/d float

glass production line, a 100t/d glassware production line, a 20t/d glass drawing tube production line and a 400t/d float glass production line which was expanded from that of 250t/d.

Demands for glass are increasing in the Bengal market as its economy improves.

Therefore, Nasir made the decision to construct the 600t/d float glass production line.

Peng Shou, board chairman and president of CTIEC, on behalf of company, signed the contract for the project with the Nasir Float Glass Industries board chairman and president.

Consol buys Kenya’s Central Glass East African Breweries Limited (EABL) said it plans to sell one its subsidiaries, Central Glass Industries Limited, to South Africa’s Consol Glass.

EABL, controlled by the

UK’s Diageo, said its board of directors had approved the sale of its entire stake in the subsidiary.

EABL did not announce the value of the planned sale

of Central Glass Industries, which makes bottles.

Consol Glass Proprietary currently exports its products to 17 markets in Africa, including Kenya.

Be first with the news! VISIT: www.glass-international.com for daily news updates

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From Glass People - For Glass People My creators made me so smooth and perfect, that`s why I made it around the world.

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Competent through experience. Since 1923, in direct collaboration with colleagues from the neighbouring production facility, mechanics and engineers have been developing machines and installations for producing container glass.

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A company of Saint-Gobain Oberland AG

Company profile: Saint-Gobain

350 years of Saint-Gobain 2015 marks the 350th anniversary of Saint-Gobain, one of the oldest manufacturing companies in the world and the global leader in the habitat and construction markets. To mark the occasion, Glass International took a look back at key points throughout the company’s history.

17th century 1665: Louis XIV, following the advice of French Minister of Finance JeanBaptiste Colbert, signs the letters patent that officially creates the Manufacture Royale de Glaces de Miroirs. The company was founded to challenge Venice’s monopoly in the manufacture of mirrors. The company develops a procedure for the manufacture of mirrors, which involved casting glass on a metal table.

1678: The company produces the glass for perhaps its most iconic achievement, the Palace of Versailles’s Hall of Mirrors .

1692: A glass factory is founded in the village of Saint-Gobain.

17th Century

 Versaille’s famous Hall of Mirrors, pictured right.

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18th Century

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z Late 18th century depiction of glass table casting at the factory in the village of Saint-Gobain.

Images courtesy of Saint-Gobain: www.saint-gobain.com

Glass International April 2015

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18th century During the 1700’s the company underwent mergers and acquisitions that resulted in it being known as Compagnie Dagincourt, and up until 1789 it maintained its royal patent allowing it to take advantage of its legal monopoly in a flourishing market. During this century, mirrors became more fashionable and affordable, and thus orders came from the general population as well as royalty. The company employed more than 1,000 workers and enjoyed increasing prosperity.

1789: The events of the French Revolution resulted in the abolishment of the monopoly rights afforded to Compagnie Dagincourt.

For the first time the company had to seek capital from private investors, although it remained partly under the control of the French state.

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19th century

19th Century

1830: As Louis-Philippe was crowned king of the newly restored monarchy in France, Saint-Gobain became a public limited company, fully independent from the state for the first time.

Although mirrors remained the company’s main business, competition from companies offering lower grade and cheaper products forced Saint-Gobain to diversify into items such as glass panes, at the same time as architectural glass was becoming a fashionable feature. Able to produce laminated and embossed glass panes, the company contributed to famous buildings such as the Crystal Palace in London, Milan railway station, and Les Halles in Paris.

By the end of the 19th century, Saint-Gobain controlled around 25% of Europe’s glass and mirror production and had ventured into opening manufacturing facilities outside of France.

The company also diversified into chemicals, and by 1900 its business was split evenly between glass and chemicals. x Early views of the Crystal Palace in London.

Company profile: Saint-Gobain

20th century 1918: Saint-Gobain expands into the manufacture of container glass, producing bottles, jars, tableware and domestic glassware lines.

1920: Saint-Gobain branches into fibreglass manufacture and in 1937 creates the company Isover, dedicated to fibreglass insulation manufacture.

Around this time, Saint-Gobain developed techniques that allowed it to develop shatter-proof glass that could be bent and shaped, vastly increasing its sales of automobile glass.

Having expanded into almost every segment of glass manufacture, the company’s sales rocketed in the period after the Second World War due to the rise in both construction and consumer freedom. Between 1950 and 1969 its work force grew from 35,000 to 100,000

and by 1970 the company had 150 subsidiaries. Glass production during this period rose from 3.5 million m2 to 45 million m2.

1970: Saint-Gobain merges with cast iron pipe manufacturer Pont-åMousson, helping it survive a hostile takeover bid from French industrial group BSN. 1982: By 1982 Saint-Gobain had been re-nationalised by France’s then socialist government, and was officially controlled by the state again. However, this soon changed and by 1987 the company was a private company once more.

1996: Saint-Gobain acquires Poliet, a building materials distribution company; a significant move that paved the way for the group to focus its energy on the habitat sector.

20th Century 21st century Today, Saint-Gobain is one of the top 100 industrial groups in the world, represented in more than 64 countries with 180,000 employees. The oldest company on the French stock market, with 350 years of history behind it Saint-Gobain has the accolade of still manufacturing its original product, flat glass, although this now only accounts for 11% of its overall revenue.

Saint-Gobain is now organised into

four major sectors (in order of significance): Building distribution; construction products; innovative materials; and packaging. Today, the company primarily focuses on sustainable habitat, with the building distribution sector making up 45% of its net sales in 2013. It is well known that it wishes to sell its container glass business, Verallia, a move which it said further solidifies the company’s intentions and its focus on going forward.

21stCentury  Artist’s impression of the future Saint-Gobain tower in La Defense, France.

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z A depiction of molten glass extraction at the factory located in Saint-Gobain.

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Bresle Valley

T

he first glass factory in the Bresle Valley opened in 1430, taking advantage of the nearby forest and river that provided the rudimentary tools, fuel and transport that the early glass industry required. Prior to the French Revolution, eight glassmakers were based in the region including Le Courval, the ancestor of Pochet du Courval, which is still present in the valley today.

By the 19th century, rail links had ensured that English coal could be transported to the factories, and glass products could be transported back to cosmopolitan customers. Glass factories thus established themselves near the railroad route, which ran alongside the River Bresle.

The Bresle Valley then became a hot spot for glass bottles for the perfume and cosmetics industry, and related sectors such as pharmaceutical glass were also produced in the region. Around this time the A. Scobart & Cie factory was created in Vieux-Rouen-sur-Bresle to cater to the luxury perfume market, a site which still exists today as the Brosse factory. As well as this, the Sociétés Autonomes de Verreries site was established in Feuquières, today known as Saverglass.

Modernisation In 1916 the Waltersperger glassworks opened in Blangy sur Bresle and was the first manufacturer in the region to install semi-automated machinery.

Other companies followed suit, and by the 1930s many of the valley’s glass factories had closed due to the reduced labour requirements that semiautomation brought with it.

 The location of the six glassmakers in the Bresle Valley region today (red). In black, are past glassmakers within the region.

Made in France “[There are

approximately] 65 companies and 7,000 employees dedicated to the glass industry within the relatively small locale of the Bresle Valley.

”

In 1939 the Desjonquères site in Mers les Bains was the first glass factory in Europe to install an IS machine, allowing it to achieve high-quality glass from a fully automatic production. In 1971 the company was acquired by Saint-Gobain and became Saint-Gobain Desjonquères, which today has again changed hands and is known as SGD. Again in 1971, Pochet du Courval established its fully automatic glass bottle production facility, and both remain renowned in the luxury perfume bottle market today.

Today, six glass manufacturers remain in the region: Pochet du Courval (Guimerville), Saverglass (Feuquieres), Verreries Brosse (Vieux Rouen sur Bresle), Verreries Waltersperger (Blangy sur Bresle), SGD (Mers les Bains) and Nipro Glass France (Aumale). As well as this, numerous founders, mould makers, sorters, decorators, and other suppliers to the glass production industry are firmly established in the region, culminating in an approximate total of 65 companies and 7,000 employees dedicated to the glass industry within the relatively small locale of the Bresle Valley.

Pochet du Courval Originally, the glassmaker Les Verreries du Courval was founded in 1623. In the 19th century, Pochet, a glass decorating company located in Paris, acted as distributor for Courval, and eventually in 1919 Pochet acquired Courval, combining the expertise of the two companies to specialise in glass bottles Continued>>

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The Bresle Valley, situated between the Normandy and Picardy regions in France, has been a glassmaking hub since the 15th century. Today, the region produces more than 75% of the world’s production of glass bottles for luxury perfumes, spirits, and pharmacy, dominating the high-end spectrum of the market. Ahead of the Glassman Lyon exhibition in May, Sally Roberts has compiled an overview of the region and its six major glass manufacturers.

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Bresle Valley

for the high-end fragrance and cosmetics market.

Courval has the historic accolade of having produced the first commercial glass bottle designed for a perfume, Guerlain’s L’Eau Imperiale in 1853.

This forever changed the way perfume was offered as a product: Rather than the consumer re-using standard bottles, perfumes were now offered in individual, customised glass bottles.

Pochet du Courval is part of the Pochet Group, and comprises the glassmaking plant in Guimerville and three decoration plants in Guimerville, Gamaches and Beaugency as well as a decoration plant in New Jersey, USA. The company’s Guimerville factory has four automatic furnaces with 18 lines, comprising six and eight section machines, and has an approximate output of one million bottles per day. Recently, Pochet has upgraded its furnace no.4 and invested heavily in new decoration techniques to keep its products at the forefront of perfume design. These recent innovations include the ‘In’pressive’ technology, which allows for the inside of the glass bottle to be sculpted, and texture technology that allows for very fine designs to be produced on the external surface of the bottle.

For more information about the company, read a company profile in Glass International, January 2015, page 12.

SGD The Verrerie du Tréport was founded in 1896 by Henri Desjonquères, and produced bottles for the luxury perfume market. In 1972 the acquisition of Desjonquères’ company by Saint-Gobain was

z Historic postcard images, courtesy of La Glass Vallee, of (clockwise): the Pochet du Courval site; Verreries Waltersperger; SGD (when it was owned by Desjonqueres); and Verreries Brosse.

completed, resulting in the formation of SaintGobain Desjonquères. In 2007 the company was bought out and became SGD as we know it today.

At present, SGD has 11 plants and 4,700 employees across three continents, and specialises in glass manufacturing for the perfumes and cosmetics industry as well as the pharmaceutical industry. In 2013 SGD had a turnover of €564m, and its annual output is 3 billion bottles. SGD still operates its factory on the original Mers les Bains site, and as reported in the November issue of Glass International, the company is building a new pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in nearby St Quentin, due to be operational by 2015.

The new factory will be dedicated entirely to pharmaceuticals, and will allow SGD to divide its perfumes and pharmaceutical manufacturing activities between the two plants in the region, with the Mers les Bains site focusing completely on the perfume and cosmetics industry. The St Quentin plant will be the first glass plant built in France for 20 years and the decision to locate it within the vicinity of the Bresle Valley was specifically taken so as to preserve the ‘internal know-how’ that this region offers.

Saverglass Saverglass specialises in luxury glass bottles for the spirits (55%), wine (38%), perfume and cosmetics (6%) and food (1%) industries. In addition to its Feuquieres factory and headquarters in the Bresle Valley, the company has production sites in Le Continued>>

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Bresle Valley

Verreries Brosse Verreries Brosse was created in 1892 in the town of Vieux Rouen sur Bresle. Now owned by the Zignago Vetro group, Verreries Brosse has maintained its own brand identity and operates as the luxury glass bottles branch of the business, catering to the perfume, cosmetics and spirits industry. The company manufactures a full range of glass packaging for perfumes, as well as decanters for high-end spirits.

With around 300 employees and five furnaces, the factory has manual, semi automatic and fully automatic processes, and produces flint and coloured glass.

Verreries Waltersperger Established in 1916, Waltersperger produces glass bottles for luxury perfumes, cosmetics, spirits, and foods. Despite being the first glass plant in the region to install semi-automatic machinery, it has not branched out further into fully automatic equipment and has instead remained focused on the hand-made element of its manufacturing process.

z The Verreries Brosse factory located in Vieux Rouen sur Bresle, past and present: The original bell tower, pictured left, can still be seen today (right).

A small company with around 35 employees, Waltersperger prides itself on applying traditional techniques to its creations, and offers production runs ranging from 500 to 20,000 units. It has a range of semi-automatic and traditional handblown machinery, and offers decoration services alongside its glass manufacturing portfolio.

Nipro Glass France

“This region

alone is responsible for producing 75% of the global demand for glass packaging for the luxury perfume, spirits, and pharmaceutical markets.

”

Although renowned as a centre for the perfume and cosmetics industry, pharmaceutical glass manufacturing also has a presence in the Valley.

As mentioned above, SGD is building a factory dedicated to its production, and Nipro Glass France has a site in Aumale dedicated to glass tubing, which is typically converted into glass containers for injectable drug products, including: Vials, ampoules, pre-filled syringes and cartridges.

Nipro acquired the site in 2011 after acquiring Amcor. At the time Nipro acquired the business, Amcor had 12 facilities around the world, and sales of around $130m. Previously, the site was owned by Alcan packaging and Wheaton, and has been established for 50 years.

2015 Not just a region of historic significance, the amount of recent investment into existing plants and glass businesses, as well as the creation of a new factory, underlines the continuing importance of the Bresle Valley. This affects not just France but the rest of the world, as this region alone is responsible for producing 75% of the global demand for glass packaging for the luxury perfume, spirits, and pharmaceutical markets.

This year, Glassman Europe returns to Lyon on the 6th and 7th May. The only international exhibition dedicated to the container glass industry, Glassman will offer exhibitors and visitors the chance to do business in one of Europe’s most prolific glass manufacturing countries. r

Bresle Valley, France, www.la-glass-vallee.com Glassman Europe http://www.glassmanevents. com/europe/

www.glass-international.com

Havre, Arques, and Ras Al Khaimah, UAE (built in 2013), as well as three decoration factories.

Saverglass has a production capacity of 400,000 tons per year and a turnover of approximately €385m, made possible by 25 production lines across its three French production sites. The company has 2,500 employees and 45% of its total sales come from exports to 80 countries around the world.

The Feuquières glassworks was founded in 1897, and from 1969 to 1976 the Feuquières plant belonged to the Société Autonome de Verreries, part of the Saint-Gobain Group. In 1976 Luc Desjonquères (of former SGD fame) purchased the company from Saint-Gobain, and in 1985 Loïc Quentin de Gromard became CEO of Saverglass and pushed the company into focusing on the niche markets that it specialises in today. In 2011 Astorg Partners completed its purchase of the company and now owns 75% of Saverglass shares, with the remaining 25% owned by employees.

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Glassman preview

Glassman Europe 2015: Lyon

Glassman Europe returns to Lyon on the 6th and 7th May. This year’s exhibition and conference, supported by FEVE and featuring presentations from O-I and Ardagh, will take place at the Cité Centre de Congrès, and will welcome visitors and exhibitors from across the global glass container manufacturing community.

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 The Cité Centre de Congrès, Lyon. Credit: Nicolas Robin.

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Glassman preview

 Last year’s Glassman South America exhibition and conference.

The conference Running alongside the exhibition, the free-of-charge Glassman conference boasts an impressive list of speakers, discussing the latest developments and issues in the glass industry. This year’s theme is ‘Energy efficiency and environmental solutions’, and opening the show is our keynote speaker from Owens Illinois (O-I). The presentation

will focus on O-I’s sustainability drive and the existing technologies the company has put in place to improve its energy efficiency. Perhaps more importantly, it will define the assistance O-I needs from glass industry suppliers, to create its vision of a sustainable glass supply chain. We hope you take the opportunity to hear from the world’s largest container glass manufacturer on what it needs and is looking for from industry suppliers.

Following on from O-I, on day one we have presentations from FEVE, Stolzle, Siemens, the Container Glass Alliance, and FERVER, amongst others. Topics discussed range from industry challenges and opportunities, improvements in Europe’s glass recycling, oxyfuel furnace technology, food packaging and health, and automated energy data acquisition.

Day two begins with a talk on ‘Saving energy with NNPB – lightweight production’, from Heye International, and closes with a presentation from Steffen Seehausen, Group Head of Sustainability and Environment at Ardagh Glass. As with O-I, Ardagh’s presentation is focused on its sustainability efforts, and its practical implementation of this approach alongside its suppliers and customers. This is another opportunity for glass manufacturer suppliers to

hear first hand what it is that global glass container manufacturers want, in terms of overall goals and working with suppliers.

Among the presentations on day two, there is also has a talk from Michael Terhorst, of SPIE Energy, on ‘Waste heat recovery in the glass industry’, and ‘A case study in safety’ from Roberto Gentilini, Health and Safety Manager at Bormioli Rocco.

The exhibition This year’s show welcomes more than 50 exhibitors from across Europe, representing leading suppliers of the equipment and materials used at every stage of the glass manufacturing process, from batch, to forming, to palletizers.

We hope that exhibitors and visitors take the opportunity to develop new business relationships and reaffirm existing ones, while enjoying the city of Lyon. The next Glassman event will take place in Mexico in September 2015, and those wanting more information should contact a member of the Glassman team.

We would like to thank Iris Inspection Machines for all their help with this year’s exhibition, and Heye International as sponsors of the conference. r

www.glassmanevents.com

www.glass-international.com

T

he leading series of events exclusively for the container glass manufacturing industry, Glassman aims to bring together industry suppliers, manufacturers and decision makers.

Alongside the traditional exhibition and conference, this year’s event also includes a VIP area, where exhibitors and their guests can enjoy private meetings and refreshments in a relaxed environment.

The Glassman show is also host to FEVE’s production and environment meeting, and is preceded by Heye International’s safety workshop, also in Lyon. Described as the “heart of the glass industry in France” by Mark Ziegler of Heye International, the company expects Glassman Europe to be “a good place to talk to customers” and will be exhibiting its Heye multilevel safety concept with a section box.

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Company profile: Gerresheimer

Tubing specialist continues to invest in its people German pharmaceutical glass manufacturer Gerresheimer acquired a plant in Querétaro, Mexico in 2002. Kicking off a series of Mexican company profiles ahead of Glassman Latin America in Guadalajara this September, Plant Manager, Hector Garcia spoke to Greg Morris about the site and its future plans.

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When was the plant in Querétaro established?

The plant was established in 1978 by a joint venture between Vitro Group and Kimble Glass.

In 1997 the Gerresheimer Group fully acquired Kimble Glass and in 2002 Gerresheimer acquired 100% of the former Ampolletas S.A. shares, renaming the plant as Gerresheimer Querétaro.

Initially the plant produced only ampoules and vials for the domestic market but later it started exporting to Central America, the USA and Canada. We now also export to India, Italy, Austria, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

What is the total size of the plant?

The Gerresheimer Querétaro complex is a 63,000m2 site that includes four sub-factories producing ampoules, vials, pre-fillable syringes and thin wall weight tubes.

The plant is the largest facility in the Americas in our industry, which is glass tubing conversion.

Who are your biggest customers?

We have several transnational, domestic and

regional pharmaceutical laboratories using our products.

How many employees do you have there?

We have 400 employees.

What education do they have?

We have college and master degree levels in our management and leadership team; we also have technical degree and high school degree employees all fitting the people we require in the positions we need.

What educational programmes do you offer to potential trainees?

At initial levels we offer glass forming courses, inspection methodologies, glass defect recognition, glass defect classification, statistics, and we have special programmes to reinforce our core values which are integrity, responsibility, innovation, team work and excellence.

Continued>>

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“My target is to continue making progress in our processes in order to be the best and most preferred option to our customers.

ANNEALING LEHRS

”

Hector Garcia We also offer courses in leadership and specific courses to reinforce tools and methods for problem solving. Our main training programme is related to the Gerresheimer Management System, which is structured in four systems related to leadership, quality, supply chain and operational methods and tools.

In your opinion, what makes the plant in Querétaro special?

HOT-END COATING

It is all about people: We have invested in the past few years in machinery, equipment, control and inspection systems, but no machine or equipment can be successfully operated nor fully utilised if the people operating such equipment are not fully engaged and motivated. We made sure the teams have what they need to make things happen, are fully trained to do their jobs and have the resources they need, but mostly, understand what the objectives are and enable them to execute their tasks.

What is your personal favourite story about the plant?

When I started working for this plant back in 1994 our production capacity was roughly 600 million units per year in ampoules and vials, now, 20 years later, production capacity has grown to more than double the original capacity and has expanded from two to four different product lines. The growth process of this plant has not been an easy one as everyone understands the growing pains that any business or person has to go through, but now, looking back and comparing where we are now, it has been a great success story.

COLD-END COATING

What are your personal wishes for the future of the Querétaro plant?

I will take this question as a challenge. The challenge that we have now is to be able to continue to improve our processes to meet the ever-increasing quality and service requirements from our customers. What they require now is not the same from just two or three years ago, this is a moving target and an ever-increasing requirement. My target is to continue making progress in our processes in order to be the best and most preferred option to our customers.

Gerresheimer, Querétaro, Mexico, www.gerresheimer.com Glassman Latin America www.glassmanevents.com Glass International April 2015

SCRAPER CONVEYOR • Belt and spindles tempering lines • Decorating lehrs • Chemical tempering ovens • Roller annealing lehrs • Mold pre-heating kilns • Stackers + cross conveyors • Scraper conveyors • Cullet crushers • Thermal shock test systems Contact us: vidromecanica@vidromecanica.com

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Company profile: Interglass

Mexico’s global supplier Continuing our series of Mexican features ahead of Glassman Latin America in September, Greg Morris met with José Luis Vélez, Managing Director of Interglass, to discuss the Mexican company’s past, present and future.

www.glass-international.com

What is the history of Interglass?

Interglass was founded in 1992 as a company exclusively dedicated to developing, manufacturing and supplying speciality lubricants for the glass industry. In 1994 we accomplished the first exports to Latin America and one year later the first outside the Americas.

In 1995, we developed our most representative range of lubricants, the swabbing compounds Interglassmold.

In the year 2000, Interglass reached a worldwide presence in more than 30 countries and four years later Interglass Brazil was founded with our own operative structure. Since then, we have been maintaining a yearly growth rate of 20% despite the global crisis.

How is the company structured, and how many employees does it have?

Our international management, headquarters and

“We are determined to become the leaders on specialised lubrication for the glass industry.

”

production plant is based in Guadalajara, Mexico.

We have a strong team of technical consultants, commercial coordinators and a multicultural international sales team.

The company also has a large production force with more than 60 workers in the plant, a strong R&D department with more than 20 people, our own laboratories, warehouses, logistics and delivery infrastructure.

We also have a large administrative sector including customer service, financial department and international traffic.

Currently, Interglass has offices in Guadalajara, Mexico City, Monterrey, New Jersey, Sao Paulo and we will soon be opening a new office in Colombia.

We also have an international structure for warehousing and delivery to our customers in Europe, Asia, Africa, as well as North and South Continued>>

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Company profile: Interglass

Through the years, we have developed the widest range of swabbing compounds, which is today our most popular family of products, known as the Interglassmolds or ‘Glassmolds’.

Our philosophy is to co-create with our customers, unique solutions through a deep understanding of each customer’s products, their process, conditions and requirements.

Through the co-creation of tailor made solutions, we look to maximise the sustainability and productivity of companies in the glass industry, focusing our efforts mainly on the finishing and glass forming process, where the impact on the final product is crucial and can only be covered by specialised solutions.

Are there any ‘green’ technologies in place at your site?

We are ISO14001 certified and one of our main business focus is the development of lubricants of non-ecological impact, this means biodegradable, biosustainable and bioremediable technologies.

We are constantly investing in the research and development of new green technologies that may help reduce the impact on the planet.

José Luis Vélez, Managing Director of Interglass.

What geographical markets does Interglass serve?

We are currently in more than 37 countries, in every continent, with local presence thanks to our network of specialised representatives.

How important is the Mexican market to Interglass?

Interglass’s production site, Guadalajara.

How has the glass container market performed in Mexico in recent years, in light of the recent global recession?

America. Our international distribution centres in Central and South America, Europe and the US allow us to properly serve all our customers located in different continents.

We have also 15 global representatives which are part of the Interglass family.

During the last few years the Mexican market has had different shades. In 2009 there was a very difficult crisis where many furnaces were shut down, but after this hard crisis the domestic market has grown solidly with the startup of new independent glass factories and the increase of installed capacity of plants from several groups.

What products do you make and which is your most popular product?

We develop all the range of speciality lubricants for the glass forming process, including the shear spray lubricant, long lasting coatings and lubricants for delivery equipment.

We also produce oils and greases for machine lubrication that are developed considering operation variables such as high temperatures and no residual formation.

Within our range of high performance lubricants is our Hyd Bio S 220 for IS machine lubrication, which has the approval of the main OEMs.

In your view, what are the current glass industry challenges and opportunities?

The Mexican glass industry has a privileged place in Latin America, as the beer companies trigger the large productions and therefore the technological developments.

The geographical position is strategic for export and the Mexican glass manufacturers’ mind-set is orientated to the continuous improvement and innovation.

The warehouse in Guadalajara.

Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

The Mexican market is OUR market and it is very important to us as it represents 40% of our business.

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Company profile: Interglass

A great opportunity might be the creation of a Mexican glass manufacturers association to organise and orient efforts together for technological innovation in the industry.

Are any investments planned?

We are investing to increase our installed production capacity and expand our operational structure in South America. For this year, our expansion plan envisions the opening of a new office and warehouse in Colombia.

Also, we have created new partnerships that will help us to expand our presence in Asia and Oceania in the near future.

Additionally we have strong investment plans to improve our characterisation laboratory and R&D facilities.

Our goal is to have one of the most advanced laboratories for the research and development of breakthrough technologies in swabbing and lubrication solutions for the glass industry. On the production side we are creating a specialised food grade unit for the most demanding markets on this aspect.

www.glass-international.com

Any future plans for the company?

22

We are determined to become the leaders in specialised lubrication for the glass industry and for that we are currently collaborating with some of the most prestigious international institutions and top class universities for the development of new technologies.

Our objectives are ambitious and cover different aspects. We not only look to expand our presence and market share worldwide, but we intend to take the swabbing and lubrication concept to the next stage by evolving the technology that has been used within the glass industry for the last few decades.

We aim to create disrupting, innovating and state of the art technology that may revolutionise the concept of lubrication for the glass forming process as we know it.

Interglass, Guadalajara, Mexico. www.interglass.com.mx Glassman Latin America, Guadalajara, Mexico. www.glassmanevents.com

Pictured: The company’s production plant in Guadalajara, and a close up of a speciality lubricant.

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Events world: Glasspex India

 AIGMF President Sanjay Ganjoo officially opened the event.

Glasspex India gets the thumbs up

T

he three-day show was a busy hub of activity as the Indian glass market descended on Mumbai. The 130 exhibitors entered into dialogue with 3,222 visitors at the Bombay Convention & Exhibition Centre. The show was being held for the fourth time at the venue and included the latest products and news from the glass manufacturing, finishing and glass applications sectors.

Exhibitors came from 13 countries - India, Germany, France, UK Italy, Singapore, China, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Austria, Iran, Finland and the USA - while the huge majority of visitors were from India.

Werner M. Dornscheidt, President and CEO of exhibition organiser Messe Düsseldorf, said: “Despite the marked decline in the Indian glass industry over the last two years, India is a market experiencing strong growth and the glass industry is an attractive economic sector.

Growth is already expected in the second half of this year. The rising standard of living in India has ensured increased demand for glass, which is being used in

an increasing number of applications.”

Exhibitor Graham Womersley, of UK company Pennine, stated the 2015 show had been the best of all the Glasspex events.

The company was highlighting its Thin Washer Link and Spacer Chain, as well as its Stainless Steel Silent Conveyor Chain.

He said: “We are very happy with the show, it’s been well attended by all the Indian hollow glass manufacturers. The quality of visitors has been excellent – all four major players of the Indian hollow glass industry have been here. Every major factory that we could sell to in India has been on the stand.”

Exhibitors stated that the Indian market had been difficult over the past few years due to overcapacity, but that was starting to settle down now and they were starting to see more investment and purchasing.

Visitors were from various sectors of each company including the purchasers, engineers, technicians and plant heads.

Stuart Hakes, CEO of FIC (UK) Limited,

was equally as pleased. He said: “India is waking up. There were a lot of good quality visitors and a lot of optimism.

People have been interested in investing.

There are definite signs that India is becoming a powerhouse.”

Simon Holmes, Sales Manager of Sheppee International, said: “It was a well-attended exhibition by all the major container glass manufacturers within the Indian surrounding markets. Completely busy days with very positive meetings.

The Indian market feels vibrant with some excellent opportunities.”

First-time exhibitor Andreas Fremerey, Managing Director of German company Rurex, said the company exhibited to make more business from the Indian market. His first impressions were that the first day had been quiet but the second day was busier.

“My goal here was to make the Indian market more conscious of high quality shear blades. We had a number of high quality visitors on the second day, some Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Exhibitors at this year’s Glasspex India deemed the show a success, with many saying that the Indian glass market was ‘waking back up’. Greg Morris was at the event in Mumbai.

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Events World: Glasspex India

z Dignitaries at the opening of Glasspex 2015.

good conversations which could possibly lead to a contract.” The company supplies to both the flat and container markets but was keen to concentrate on the container glass market in India.

Jens Dubert, Service Engineer of GPS, shared a stand with Viral Modi, Managing Director of Saint-Gobain Accuramech Industrial Engineering. It was the second time they had exhibited and both said it had been a successful show.

Mr Modi said: “The second day saw the majority of decision makers come and have detailed discussions with us.

The market had been slow here for a couple of years but this year people want to improve and do new things. We have had lots of interest. The people are eager for the Indian market to improve again.”

Harald Hickl-Zimolong, Key Account Manager, Container Glass, of Zippe Industrieanlagen said: “We renewed our long-term contacts with Indian customers. We made contacts with potential suppliers. Our expectations were based on the economic situation and not too high. In particular areas our expectations are more than fulfilled.”

Five Italian companies exhibited under

the Gimav umbrella. Gimav Deputy Director, Laura Biason, who represented the association at Glasspex India said: “The exhibition was relatively quiet in terms of visitor attendance, but the level of attention was high. Our companies reported a large amount of interest, which further demonstrates how Italian products have a great appeal for the domestic glass industry.”

AIGMF conference The All India Glass Manufacturers’ Federation (AIGMF) organised the parallel conference. The first morning was devoted to Cost Effective Technology in Container Glass for Tomorrow.

Speakers included Sonia Podleiszekova of Iris Inspection Machines, Bod Chambers of Fosbel and Prof Heiko Hessenkemper, of Technische Universitat Bergakademie Freiberg. A technical paper of his is in this issue, page (PAGE NUMBER).

About 50 people attended the conference, which included nine technical papers and an opening address from Mr Sanjay Somany, Former President, AIGMF, and Mr Arun Kumar Dukkipatti. Senior Vice President, AIGMF.

www.glass-international.com

Sheppee’s Simon Holmes (right) reported a successful show.

Ms Podleiszekova’s presentation, entitled ‘Innovative Cold End Inspection in View of a Challenging Glass Container Industry’, discussed the company’s Evolution 12 inspection system, which among its features includes 12 viewing angles and a 360 degrees overlapping.

Mr Chambers discussed ‘Savings in Construction Costs of a Complete Furnace by Precast Shaped Blocks’. He encouraged a proactive maintenance of a furnace as opposed to reactive maintenance.

A proactive maintenance campaign includes an inspection plan, a campaign goal review and maintenance planning.

He encouraged smaller scope repairs more often, which allows a company to stay ahead of larger repairs that can cost a company a lot of money.

He outlined the types of both proactive and reactive repairs that are available and some of the most common damage that can occur to a furnace over its life.

He concluded: “A furnace is the most important component to a business. The focus is producing glass and I’m drawing your attention upstream from that to say that if you’re going to get the most life out of your asset you need to align your campaign goals with the maintenance practices that start with inspections, with a maintenance plan, it starts with a series of hot repairs with a number of different methodologies.

“Regenerators are the weak points so a robust inspection on your regenerator and an action plan to meet those goals is the way to maximise you profit and preserve capital.”

The next Glasspex India takes place between March 2 to 4, 2017 in Mumbai. r

www.glasspex.com

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WE ARE GLASS PEOPLE

HEYE SPEEDLINE IS-MACHINES

HIGH SPEED AT HIGH QUALITY PLUS SUPERIOR LIFETIME High safety and high usability to protect staff and equipment Clear interfaces for fast installation and exchange of parts Clean design to fulfil HACCP requirements Flexibility through modular design Same core – same variables

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Company profile: Piramal Glass

Indian container manufacturer with an eye on the globe

Mr Vijay Shah, Director of India’s Piramal Glass, gives an overview of the company to Greg Morris and discusses how the company plans to grow in the global premium cosmetics and perfumery business.

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P

iramal Glass Limited (PGL) is part of the Ajay Piramal Group, a diversified business conglomerate. The Piramal Group’s market capitalisation is around $4billion and the consolidated revenue of Piramal Glass for the last financial year (Apr 13 – Mar 14) was INR 17.930 million ($300 million).

Piramal Glass’s journey into the container glass packaging business began in 1984 with the acquisition of the Gujarat Glass plant at Kosamba, in the Indian state of Gujarat. Piramal Glass operates under three units: r Piramal Glass Limited, a private limited company with two plant operations in India; r Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC, a listed company on the Colombo stock exchange with a plant operation in Sri Lanka; r Piramal Glass USA Inc, a private company with a plant in the USA.

India In India, Piramal Glass Limited has two plants in the state of Gujarat. The Kosamba plant has seen many greenfield and brownfield furnace projects over the past 30 years, and has six furnaces with a total capacity of 370 tonnes per day (TPD).

The other plant at Jambusar - 60 miles north of Kosamba - is a greenfield plant built by Piramal Glass in 1998. The plant has three furnaces with a total capacity of 520 TPD. The two plants produce three major types of container glass: Type III/II flint (containers for cosmetics and perfumery, pharma and food industry segments); Type III/II amber (pharma and chemical bottles); and Type I flint & amber (pharma vials and bottles).

The strategic focus of the Indian operations is to grow in the premium cosmetics and perfumery business globally and to consolidate the Type I glass business. At present, exports contribute about 60% of the company’s total business from India, which caters to global brands such as Coty, Dior, Givenchy, Sisley, Yves Rocher, Revlon in the cosmetics and perfumery segment and companies such as Hospira (now Pfizer), Mylan, and Fresenius Kabi, in the pharmaceutical business. With warehouse storage in seven countries, Piramal Glass exports its products to 54 countries.

The two plants employ about 3,000 people and have furnaces designed by Horn and Sorg, Continued>>

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Company profile: Piramal Glass

container-forming machines from Bucher Emhart Glass and Bottero, and automatic inspection machines from Visiglas and Bucher Emhart Glass.

A fully integrated in-house design studio for bottle and concept designing and mould manufacturing shops at both plants help facilitate the needs of cosmetics and perfumery customers in terms of rapid product development.

With the cosmetics and perfumery segment forming a substantial part of the Indian business, Piramal Glass also provides added value to its customers through the decoration of perfume and nail polish bottles and foundation jars.

The decoration capability includes screenprinting, pad printing, lacquering, acid etching, hot foil stamping, decal, metal/ stone studding and metallisation.

The Indian glass operations are ISO-9001 certified for quality management, OHSAS 18001 for safety management, SA 8000 for social accountability and 50001 for energy management. The Type I Glass is also registered under Drug Master File No.16216.

the needs of US-based cosmetics and perfumery customers such as L’Oréal, Elizabeth Arden, Coty, Estée Lauder, Revlon and its distribution segment which includes Berlin Packaging, Tricor Braun and All American Containers.

Challenges

Piramal Glass Ceylon was acquired in Sri Lanka in 1999. It is the only container glass manufacturer in Sri Lanka and caters to approximately 95% of the country’s demand across all industry segments.

The Horana factory has a 250 TPD furnace, along with a small in-house decoration facility to screen print the bottles. Besides servicing the needs of the domestic market, it also exports speciality bottles to Australia, India, Africa and Europe.

Its strength lies in the capability to produce large-size colour forehearth bottles.

Piramal Glass Ceylon has developed and established a portfolio of about 15 different colours (shades of green, blue and black) for the speciality and wine bottle segment.

With a team of 400 employees, Piramal Glass Ceylon has been among the highest performing companies in Sri Lanka for many years.

The glass manufacturing industry in India faces challenges. Glass is an energy-intensive industry and the rise in the cost of power and fuel in India over the past two years has posed a challenge to all domestic container glass manufacturers.

In terms of demand, while the overall domestic market was subdued over the past year, overcapacity in Type III Amber glass added to the pressure on all domestic players in the country.

A draft notification was issued in September 2014 by the Indian Government’s health ministry proposing a ban on PET or plastic containers for primary packaging in liquid oral formulations for paediatric, geriatric and reproductive healthcare use.The notification is under debate and a decision in favour will boost amber bottle demand.

As an emerging economy with growing consumer power, the cosmetics and perfumery segment continues to experience a decent growth in demand. While the premium and select brands continue to be imported, domestic mass-market customers are anticipating a high growth in demand for fragrance and colour cosmetics.

In terms of global competition, international glass manufacturing companies such as Gerresheimer, with the acquisition of Neutral Glass, and SGD through its affiliate Cogent Glass, now have a physical presence in India.

Lastly, glass is 100% recyclable and ecofriendly, but the glass recycling industry in India is completely un-organised, with primitive collection methods, sorting and re-use. A systematic approach to re-cycling and formation of an eco-system as seen in developed countries such as France and Germany would greatly help the container glass industry in India. r

USA

http://www.piramalglass.com/

Sri Lanka

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Piramal Glass USA was formed after the acquisition of part of the business of Glass Group in 2005 after the group filed a voluntary petition for relief and reorganisation under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

Gerresheimer bought the pharmaceuticals division of the business while Piramal acquired the rest of the company, which mainly comprised the cosmetics and perfumery business.

Piramal Glass acquired the fixed assets, inventory and operation of the two plants. One, located at Park Hills, Missouri has two melting furnaces with a total capacity of 195 TPD, and the other plant at Williamstown, NJ is where the decoration operations are carried out.

It employs 500 people and the focus is on building the speciality business segment while also serving

27 Glass International April 2015

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Environment

Indian glass industry: Energy efficiency opportunities

Sachin Kumar*, Ananda Mohan Ghosh and Girish Sethi outline the glass manufacturing industry’s energy consumption in India and suggest ways in which it can reduce emissions.

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I

ndia is the fourth largest consumer of primary energy in the world. Primary commercial energy consumption in the country for 2011/12 was around 314 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MtoE).

The industrial sector is the largest user of commercial energy in India, accounting for about 47% of the country’s total commercial energy use during 2011-12.

Industrial fuel use (including non-energy uses) grew from 49.2 MtoE in 1985/86 to 146.72 MtoE in 2011/12. Despite the energy-intensive nature of the sector, industry has seen greater energy efficiency improvements since the late 1980s than any other sector in India. Industry plays an important role in the Indian economy, and has been a consistent driver of GDP growth accounting for about 27% of GDP over the last few years. The industrial sector in India is highly diversified and

comprises a range of sub-sectors and industries with immense variation in size and scale of operation, product mix and energy consumption. The industrial energy demand in the country is shared by large industries as well as Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

Important sub-sector Glass manufacturing is one of the important industrial sub-sectors. It is a well-established manufacturing sector in the country. During 2011-12 the Indian glass market was worth about $2.7 billion.

The Indian glass industry represents one of the largest markets and manufacturing capacity for glass products in the Asian region. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has categorised the glass sector into seven segments depending upon the type of glass. The production of various Production

Type of glass Glass sheet

Unit

2011-12

2012-13

Thousand Sq. m

1,06,144

1,10,992

1,27,582

2013-14 31,91,187

Toughened Glass

Sq.m

26,78,263

35,66,399

Fibre Glass

Tonne

42,670

42,516

38,265

Glass Bottles

Tonne

12,71,920

12,46,501

9,95,10

zTable 1. Production of various types of glass in India. Source: DIPP 2012-13 and DIPP 2013-14.

types of glass during the last few years in the country is in Table 1.

Per capita glass consumption in India is quite low (about 1.2kg) compared to other countries such as the USA (3035kg). Although the glass industry is facing competition from alternative mediums, its key properties such as inertness, transparency and recyclability means glass will be a dominant packaging medium. Glass is 100% recyclable and therefore over a life-cycle aspect of a material it is certainly more sustainable compared to other packaging materials presently being used, especially in the food industry. Also, the increased demand from the automobile sector and new architectural aspects are creating a market for the glass sector.

Cost driver The glass industry is energy intensive and energy consumption is a major cost driver. Melting and refining are the most energy-intensive portions of the glassmaking process and account for more than 60% of the total energy used in the glass industry. Substantial progress Continued>>

28 Glass International April 2015

Sachin Kumar.indd 1

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At home in the world of glass

NIKOLAUS SORG GmbH & Co KG

EME MASCHINENFABRIK CLASEN GmbH

INTERNATIONAL GmbH

FEUERUNGSBAU UND SERVICE GmbH

SORG KERAMIK SERVICE GmbH

Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG | Stoltestraße 23 | 97816 Lohr am Main /Germany | Phone: +49 (0) 9352 507 0 | E-Mail: nsorg@sorg.de | www.sorg.de

Environment

60%

% Waste heat loss

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 0

100

200

300

400

500

600

Typical furnace size (tonnes/day)

Fig 1. Relationship between typical furnace size and average waste heat losses in different segment of

www.glass-international.com

glass industry. (Source: USDE (2002)).

has been made with energy efficiency in recent years and some processes (e.g. large regenerative furnaces) have adopted best glass manufacturing technologies that have helped in reducing energy consumption. A modern regenerative container furnace will have an overall thermal efficiency of around 50% with waste gas losses of around 30% and structural losses making up the vast majority of the remainder.

Like many industrial sectors, especially under MSMEs, glass manufacturing is one of the sectors for which specific information and data about energy consumption, key operational and technological parameters is not readily available. Apart from a few large glass manufacturing units by major players such as HNG, Saint-Gobain, Asahi Glass, Piramal Glass, Gujarat Guardian and La Opala, a substantial number of glass manufacturing units come under the MSME category. The units in the MSME category are generally located in clusters. Firozabad is an important glassmanufacturing cluster in the country.

There is a large agglomeration of smallscale units engaged in the manufacture of bangles, hollow wares, decorative items, glass beads and headlight covers. Tank furnace and closed & open pot furnace are the major glass melting technologies used in the cluster.

There are other auxiliary furnaces such as muffle furnace and reheating furnace involved in the glass processing chain.

The total energy consumption of the cluster is about 0.19 MToE per year.

Furnace oil and natural gas are major fuels used by the Indian glass industry and thermal energy consumption accounts for about 80% of total energy consumption. The preliminary

estimates indicate that the annual energy consumption by the Indian glass industry is about 1 MToE. The increased cost of conventional fuels, besides environmental consideration for conservation of non-renewable fossil fuels, has encouraged glass manufacturers to reduce their energy consumption.

Waste heat recovery The high temperature of a glass-melting furnace (1300 – 15400°C) results in emissions of exhaust gases. This provides ‘waste heat recovery’ as one potential option to reduce energy consumption in glass manufacturing. In the glass industry, waste heat recovery potential generally depends upon the furnace size, which varies for different segments of the glass industry. Flat glass and container glass melting is performed in large furnaces, while average capacities for pressed/blown glass, insulation fibre glass and, textile fibre glass are much smaller.

As can be noted from Fig 1, the smallercapacity furnaces typically have a higher percentage of waste heat losses.

A substantial portion of the sensible heat of exhaust gases can be used to preheat the combustion air. Combustion air preheat can increase the furnace efficiency by up to 50%.

Regenerators and recuperators are the most frequently used waste heat recovery systems in the glass industry. TERI, the Energy and Resources Institute (India), had successfully demonstrated waste heat recovery option in small – scale glass industries in the Firozabad cluster.

This counter-flow WHR system comprises a metallic recuperator with five modules made of stainless steel. It is used to pre-heat combustion air to about 550 – 6000°C, resulting in an energy saving of

about 25-30%.

In addition to combustion air preheating, methods for waste heat recovery in glass manufacturing include preheating batch and cullet material and using waste heat boilers (WHB) for electricity generation. Generally, batch preheating is more difficult than cullet preheating, as clumping of incoming materials can affect the product quality and melting efficiency. Theoretically, any system with over 50% cullet in the batch can install preheaters.

Energy saving of cullet preheaters is estimated to be around 12-20% depending upon the cullet share and preheating temperature. WHB installation for electricity generation in India is not common: Saint-Gobain was the first float glass company in India to commission the WHB system to use sensible heat of flue gases to generate 1.23MW of electricity at the rated furnace pull.

The time has now come for glass plants to improve their energy consumption and environmental aspect as well. For India to be a leading player in glass manufacturing it needs to adopt various energy and environmental improvement measures for its sustainability. r

References: 1.

Department

of

Industrial

Policy

and

Policy

and

Promotion, Annual Report 2012- 13 2.

Department

of

Industrial

Promotion, Annual Report 2013- 14 3.

European

Commission,

Best

Available

Techniques (BAT) Reference Document for the Manufacture of Glass, JRC Reference Report, 2013 4.

Economic Survey 2013-14

5.

Sachin Kumar, Glass Manufacturing: Path

for Sustainable Development, Kanch, Vol 2, No. 2, Jul – Sep 2014 6.

TERI Energy Data Directory and Yearbook

(TEDDY), 2013-14 7.

TERI, Report on Improving Energy Efficiency

in the Firozabad Glass Industry Cluster, 2012 8.

U.S. Department of Energy (USDE), Energy

and Environmental Profile of the U.S. Glass Industry, April 2002 9.

U.S. Department of Energy (USDE), Waste

Heat Recovery: Technology and opportunities in U.S. Industry, March 2008 10. http://cdm.unfccc.int /filestorage/5/T/B/5TB SUC6PKZRGNYJ1X34M809EHAQ2LF/PDD. p d f ? t = O F h 8 b m p j M X N l f D D q G I G c Wo 0 e YC5idLFUuy2q as assessed on 15 December 2014

* Corresponding Author & Fellow, Industrial Energy Efficiency Division, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) www.teriin.org

30 Glass International April 2015

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Melting

Shining a light on black glass Prof. Dr. Heiko Hessenkemper* discusses the results of a study carried out by Freiberg University into black glass and its material composition.

Additional uses Unfortunately, the industry and the market are not ready for this solution.

Therefore, additional concepts have been added. Focusing on electronic waste materials, including lead glass from television tubes, the idea was to create different economic potentials with more or less the same production unit: r The production of glassy materials for different markets: Floor and roof tiles; superior glass components for photovoltaic industry; raw material for Continued>>

Slag glass ceramics It was shown that there is an area where changes of glass composition go along with only small changes of properties such as viscosity. it is possible to control and change the composition of the batch of slag glass using online measurment of viscosity.

45 40 55 50 wt % SiO 2, RO -

 Fig 1. Property of slag glass as a function of glass composition.

22

18

20

16 14 % Al 2O 3, wt

12

10

 Fig 2.

Solar glass

Shchukin VA et al..

Epitaxy of Nanostructures, Springer 2004

1/T (temperature of substrate)

Na2O +

α,

K2O

10-6K-1

Tg,°C

Tliq,°C

ρ, kg/m3

1

46

21

23

2

2

6

7.02

696

1232

2740

2

61

10

18

3

3

5

7,07

662

1230

2650

3

44

23

22

2

2

7

7,12

688

1192

2740

4

49

15

19

7

5

5

6,91

674

1236

2780

5

45

16

18

9

6

6

7,14

662

1257

2830

6

46

19

15

3

10

7

7,22

655

1220

2820

7

53

15

17

8

2

5

7,19

677

1249

2720

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Fe2O3

s

MgO

tic

CaO

1

ne

Al2O3

ki

SiO2

2

3

by

Nr

limited by transport d

Dependence of epitaxial growth from temperature of substrate for MOVPE-process (metalorganic vapour epitaxy)

ion

pt

or

s de

ite

For the MOVPE-process (GaAs) for the production of GaAs-solar cells temperatures above 530°C are more effective.

lim

The raw material for black glass is always a mixture of different sources, flexible to different situations. These sources fluctuate. On the other side, the product has to have stabilised properties.

Therefore a programme was developed to find composition regions that have small variations in technically important properties, even when there are large fluctuations in composition. The second approach was on online viscosity measurement device.

With changes in viscosity in a furnace network, forming materials such as SiO2 from cast iron production were added to keep the viscosity stable, as well as other properties. (Figs 1, 2).

Different technical aspects were evaluated and solved, such as: Efficient energy input into the melt (problems with pure radiation due to the black glass); forming aspects where rolled glass production was chosen; online glass surface improvement for colour changes; crystallisation; improvement of mechanical and chemical properties; creating special shapes, and so on.

As well as this, special concerns were investigated: What about the incorporation of hazardous materials?

At this stage, the basic glass composition was an Alumo-Silicate glass. About 2% weight of lead, chromium and cadmium was added and the leaching tests gave the

mainly due to the negative raw material cost.

property

Making the glass

result that in all cases the material being dissolved was far below any critical value.

Another aspect was the aggressive corrosion of the melt to the refractory material. Here, best results were achieved with chromium-based products. After two months of operation we saw a corrosive attack in the range of millimetres; therefore the lifetime of the furnace can be predicted to be at least eight years, and is not a technical or financial risk.

The small amount of dissolved heavy metal was not a problem. In summary: At the end of the project, this is a ready to use technology.

Regarding the economics, this kind of glass production is superior in quality and cost to classical ceramic materials,

log (epitaxial growth)

B

lack glass is a description for glass made from mineral slags. In the late 1980’s in the former Soviet Union millions of square metres of glass ceramic floor tiles were produced with superior properties using metallurgical slag as raw material.

One major problem of black glass is the instability of the raw material composition. Different approaches were investigated at the Freiberg University in an Inno Regio project, where floor and roof tiles were produced in a semiindustrial scale over two months.

31 Glass International April 2015

Hesssenkemper.indd 1

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Melting

glass foam being used for thermal solar use up to desalination techniques. r Recovery of lead, indium and other interesting materials from electronic waste. r Solving the problem of problematic mineral slags.

This concept is shown in Fig. 3. The recovery of metals from lead after a reduction process in the furnace is a standard metallurgical process and creates its own interesting business case.

Technical problems such as homogenisation, the reduction process, the accelerated sedimentation of the reduced lead and so on have been successfully solved. Special interest lay in the reduction process, starting with the question of which material could be used. However, with the reduction of lead the chemical composition of the melt is changed, and therefore also the viscosity, which will increase. This influences sedimentation, especially the time needed for the process, and this again is a decisive economic parameter.

What influence does the furnace atmosphere have? The results are that 100% of the lead and 80% of Indium, Sn and other materials could be extracted.

Recycling of electronic waste Technological scheme of recycling process of electronic waste, recovery of secondary metals and production of black glass. electric and electronic waste (CRT, LCD, PV-modules, mobile phones etc.) reduction agents (scrap metal, carbon etc)

glass melter 1500°C

black glass

glass process

new material for substrates of PV-modules and other devices

melting compounds

 Fig 3.

metal

metallurgical process

However, a problem still exists: About 10-20% of the input - the reduced metals - could easily be sold, but for the rest there is still a marketing problem.

With building materials a saturated market, photovoltaic could absorb it with 50-100 million m2 per year in Europe alone, a huge market.

However, the sandwich technology or the thin layer technologies would have to absorb this new glass, which again is essentially a marketing problem.

The thermal solar market in Europe, with about three million square metres, is still a small market, but nevertheless there should be room for an initial small

secondary metals for new electronic devices (Au,Ag,In etc)

30,000-tons/year industrial production unit.

The conservative economic calculations give a return on investment of less than one year and the cooperation research groups involved in this project (the Institute for Ceramic, Glass and Building Materials, the Institute for Nonferrous Metals, and Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resources Technology) are now searching for partners for an industrial realisation. r

*Professor Glass, Technical University Bergakademie, Freiberg, Germany www.tu-freiberg.de/index.en.html

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32 Glass International April 2015

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French supplement

Vive la France

T

he third largest producer of container glass in the EU, France produced a total of 3.03 million tons of container glass in 2013. Accounting for 14% of European Union production, it only marginally lags behind Germany (18%) and Italy (16%).

More than 120,000 wineries, a substantial spirits industry, and a concentration of some of the largest packaged food producers has enabled French container glass producers to become the hub of European container glass manufacturing.

France is also considered the uncrowned capital of fashion, making its perfumery and cosmetics segments one of the largest globally.

All of these sub-segments have made substantial contributions to the growth of the container glass industry in the country. The last few years may not have been the best for container producers in France, but as the economic situation in Europe improves, the industry is gearing up to achieve pre economic crisis levels (Table 1).

The country currently has a total of 21 container glass manufacturing plants, which are primarily represented by O-I, Verallia (SaintGobain Packaging), Saverglass, SGD, Pochet and a new entrant, Stölzle.

Owens-Illinois (O-I) With nine manufacturing plants in the country (Beziers, Gironcourt, Labegude, Puy Guillaume, Reims, Vayres, Veauche, Wingles and Vergeze), O-I France is the largest container glass producer in France.

“

O-I entered the French market in1986, with the largest ever acquisition in the French container glass market: The company’s $625 million acquisition of BSN Glasspack in 2004 instantly made O-I the largest producer in the domestic market.

”

O-I entered the French market in 1986, with the largest ever acquisition in the French container glass market: The company’s $625 million acquisition of BSN Glasspack in 2004 instantly made O-I the largest producer in the domestic market.

O-I made another acquisition in 2010 when it bought Verrerie du Languedoc, a small glassmaker based in Vergeze, for $15 million. Founded in 1973, Verrerie du Languedoc operates one furnace and four production lines, and produces glass containers for the beverage industry.

In 2013, O-I invested €140 million across its European operations, including €40 million dedicated to its French operations.

The investment involved new equipment at Wingles (Pas-de-Calais) and capacity addition at its Gironcourt-sur-Vraine (Vosges) plants, both of which produce container glass for the beer industry. A new production line will be added at its Vayres plant (Gironde), which produces bottles for the wine market. O-I also plans to invest at its Puy-Guillaume (Puy-de-Dôme) and Veauche (Loire) plants. The former produces for the food industry, while the latter specialises in producing glass containers for cognacs.

Speaking exclusively to Glass International in March 2014, former O-I Europe President Erik Bouts confirmed that one of the company’s European focuses will be on wine.

Mr. Bouts noted how O-I has the best footprint in Continued>>

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Ahead of Glassman Europe 2015, which will take place in Lyon next year, Glass International took a look at the container glass industry in France, and the manufacturers that are based in one of the biggest wine and perfume producing regions of the world.

33 Glass International April 2015

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French supplement

the wine industry, with a factory every 150km along the European wine belt which begins in Bordeaux, western France, and continues to eastern Italy. Approximately 80% of all European wine is produced in this belt, and O-I has 10 facilities in this region which gives it the flexibility to have inventory and bottles available to winemakers as and when they need them.

terms of sophistication and customisation.

A major producer for the alcoholic beverage industry, more than 90% of the company’s sales come from this segment. The group serves the world’s largest alcohol producers (Pernod Ricard, Diageo, Bacardi Martini, LVMH, Rémy Martin), as well as many smaller premium wine and spirit producers.

The Feuquières glassworks was founded in 1897 and is part of the regional tradition of Bresle Valley, which has been a stronghold of French glassmaking since the 16th century.

From 1969 to 1976, the Feuquières plant belonged to the Société Autonome de Verreries, part of the Saint-Gobain Group. Since then, it has based its development on products designed especially to meet high-end demand from the spirits segment.

Another container glass company, Tourres & Company (one of the oldest in the industry, which is based in Le Havre and has been producing glass bottles since 1841) joined the Saverglass Group in 1999.

Verallia Saint Gobain’s packaging subsidiary, Verallia is the second largest producer in the French container glass industry. With six production sites and 12 furnaces in the country, Verallia produced about 3.4 billion glass containers and jars in 2013 from its French operations. With a global output of 16 billion containers per annum, Verallia is the third largest global producer of container glass.

Operating in the heart of the winemaking region from its six production facilities (Verallia Lagnieu, Pots alimentaires, Verallia Saint Romain, Verallia Cognac, Verallia Vauxrot and Verallia Oiry), Verallia is a key supplier for the still and sparkling wine segments and the spirits market in France.

Last year, Verallia invested €22 million into Furnace 3 at its Cognac plant. Dedicated to producing green colour bottles for the Bordeaux wine market, the expansion also involved installing new IS machines and the reconstruction of the cold end of the furnace. Philippe Coltat Gran, Director at the Cognac plant, said at the time of inauguration: “The new equipment will enable us to improve our customer service by producing in smaller series and shorter deadline”.

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Saverglass A container glass producer for premium and super premium glass bottles, Saverglass produces glass bottles for spirits and fine wines, and on a small scale for the perfume sector. In 2013, Saverglass achieved sales of €382 million from its glass operations, of which approximately 45% came from exports.

Headquartered in Feuquières, the company produces 400,000 tons of glass per year from its three production facilities located at Feuquières, Le Havre and Arques, and is assisted by three bottle decoration workshops at Feuquières, Arques, and Coulommiers. The decoration business, launched in 1991, complements the high-end service and provides solutions for demand that is growing in

SGD Group

“More than

120,000 wineries, a substantial spirits industry, and a concentration of some of the largest packaged food producers has enabled French container glass producers to become the hub of European container glass manufacturing.

”

Table 1. Container Glass Production in the top three European markets.

Country

2013

2012

2011

2010

France

3,030,949

3,146,755

3,310,186

3,152.023

Germany

3,933,641

3,934,844

4,065,452

3,787,750

Italy

3,349,407

3,391,637

3,568,710

3,506,532

Source: FEVE

SGD Group, a former Saint-Gobain division, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of high-end glass containers for the perfume and pharmaceutical industries. The company produced more than 3 billion glass containers and generated revenues of €564 million in 2013.

SGD operates five plants and a packaging solutions subsidiary in France. Production plants are located at Mers-les-Bains (one of the world’s biggest glass bottle plants, making products for the pharmaceutical, perfumery and cosmetics industries), Verreries de l’Orne, Verreries de la Somme, Sucy-en-Brie and Société de Services Verriers.

Globally, SGD operates 11 production sites and 10 commercial locations in Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, China, the USA and France.

Pochet Pochet, formerly known as Verreries du Courval, is a multi packaging solutions provider. The company primarily produces and markets glass, metal and plastic packaging products including perfume bottles, jars, decorative glass containers, fragrance glass bottles and metal and plastic closures. Pochet also offers services such as perfume bottling, silk screening, printing, labeling, sand-blasting, assembling and plastic moulding techniques.

With 15 manufacturing facilities and 17 production lines providing an average daily production capacity of 1.2 million glass bottles, jars and closures, Pochet’s operations span across Spain, Italy, the US, Germany, UK and Brazil, as well as France.

Continued>>

34 Glass International April 2015

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Verreries Brosse

New entrant

Founded in 1892 and based in Vieux-Rouen-surBresle, Verreries Brosse produces glass bottles for the luxury segment of the perfume industry. It has been a subsidiary of the Italian company Zignago Vetro since 2002, when the latter acquired the assets of Verreries Brosse during an insolvency proceeding. Verreries achieved sales of €53 million in 2013.

Located in the famous Bresle Valley, Verrerie Brosse is among the last companies in the area.

The company prides itself on having maintained the traditional skills of the craft to meet the most demanding requirements of its clientele, and serves the bottling needs of perfume producers such as Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Hugo Boss and Nina Ricci.

Its parent company, Zignago Vetro group produces hollow glass containers primarily for the food and beverage, cosmetics and perfumery and speciality glass container markets. It is active in Europe through four business units: Zignago Vetro, Verreries Brosse, Vetri Speciali, and Huta Szkla Czechy, with production facilities based in France, Italy and Poland.

Stölzle Glass Group, a European producer of highend packaging glass for the perfumery, cosmetics, spirits and the pharmaceutical industries, entered the French market earlier this year with the acquisition of Verreries de Masnières and Bormioli Rocco Valorisation, from the Bormioli Rocco Group. The acquisition became effective on the last day of 2013 and will enable Stölzle to acquire a larger market share of the French luxury container glass market.

Bormioli Rocco group had invested €40 million in the Masnières factory in 2013. The investment involved the reconstruction of furnace No. 5, which increased its production capacity to 80 tons/day. Work is now ongoing on the expansion of furnace No 3. Upon completion, the installed capacity will be 160 tons/day. This investment also modernised nine IS lines and equipment in the cold end section. The company had also invested in a new decoration workshop and added lacquering and hot stamping sections in recent years.

www.glass-international.com

VOA Glass Based in France’s southwest wine-growing region, between Bordeaux and the Mediterranean, VOAVerrerie d’Albi produces bottles for the wine, spirits and non-alcoholic beverage segments. VOA has two furnaces with a capacity of 180,000 tons feeding six production lines. It produces glass containers in five basic colours: Green, dead leaf, flint, extra flint and cannelle. VOA exports about a quarter of its production to other European countries.

VOA has invested in a flexible system for producing glass containers in small lots. The company has been producing container glass in small series since 2010. This system allows the company to produce between 10,000 to 50,000 glass bottles in flint and extra flint colours. This flexible line technology can produce up to three different articles on the same line. This system uses a variable weight feeder that allows for the delivery of variable weights of glass gobs for different bottles produced on the same line, and a recognition sorter that uses a camera to identify the different types and forms of bottles and sort them as they come off the line.

“

The fact that the country is the epicentre of wine, quality spirits, prestigious perfumes and cosmetic companies, has helped domestic container glass producers to grow in tandem with these companies.

”

Waltersperger Waltersperger is an example of one of the master glassmakers of the Bresle Valley in Upper Normandy. Founded in 1916, Waltersperger was among the first container glass producers to install semi-mechanised glass machines for container glass production. The company has positioned itself as a container glass provider for niche and developing brands, offering them full service and support. It was acquired in 2010 by a former senior executive at Bulgari perfume and L’Oréal luxury products division.

France produces container glass for some of the most well-known companies in the world, and the fact that the country is the epicentre of wine, quality spirits, renowned perfumes and cosmetic companies, has helped domestic container glass producers to grow in tandem with these companies. 

Glassman Europe 2015 takes place in Lyon, France, on the 6th and 7th May. www.glassmanevents.com

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French supplement

France’s Pochet du Courval pushes the fragrance boundaries Nestled in the historic glassmaking region of the Bresle Valley, French fragrance and cosmetic bottles expert Pochet du Courval is currently modernising its Furnace Number 4 at its Guimerville, Normandy site. Greg Morris travelled to the region and spoke to Christian Durand, Managing Director Operations, and Antoine Planque, Managing Director of Sales and Marketing, to find out more about the company and its decoration techniques and technologies.

This profile is part of a series of articles in the lead up to the Glassman Europe exhibition and conference in Lyon, France, in May 2015.

www.glass-international.com

Can you give a history of the company?

The company is the result of the association of two companies: a glassmaker, Les Verreries du Courval, founded in 1623 in the Bresle Glass Valley, in Guimerville in the north of Normandy and a glass decorating company, Pochet, located in Paris, which was the distributor of Verreries du Courval in Paris.

Pochet acquired Verreries du Courval in 1919.

In 1853 Les Verreries du Courval had produced the first glass bottle designed for a perfume: the Guerlain ‘L’Eau Impériale’. This was the start of a key change for perfume. From that day perfumes were not filled in standard bottles, but rather in customised glass bottles.

The company has always been a leader in the fragrance/cosmetics glassmaking market, by innovating and pushing the limits of feasibility,

and making possible creative designs for fragrance companies.

How is the company structured?

Pochet du Courval is part of Groupe Pochet, which comprises three divisions dedicated to the high end fragrance and cosmetics packaging: the Glass division with Pochet du Courval, the plastic/ metal division with Qualipac, and the decoration division with Solev, a specialised decoration division.

Pochet du Courval comprises the French operations, with the glass making plant in Guimerville and three decoration plants in Guimerville, Gamaches and Beaugency; and the US operations with a decoration plant in Wayne, Continued>>

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NJ. Both operations total around 1800 employees.

“

Since 1997 we have reduced our CO2 emissions by more than 30%.

Also, as far as volatile organic compounds are concerned, we have reduced our emissions by more than 50%.

Can you tell me more about the Guimerville site, such as the number of production lines, and type of specialist equipment used?

The glass manufacturing site has four furnaces and 18 production lines. The equipment has evolved to adapt to the specific needs of our market.

Today, our key challenges are to enhance our process control equipment and our inspection equipment. Our focus remains to serve our customers’ needs and push the limits of design feasibility to produce extraordinary products.

”

What products do you make and which is your most popular?

We produce customised glass bottles for the fragrance and cosmetics markets. Our most popular products are the leading fragrance brands from the industry leaders, for which we have mastered the glass repartition to achieve the most difficult designs. Our innovation department, working with the manufacturing team, constantly introduce new inventions, which have made the impossible, possible.

How have the perfumes and cosmetics markets performed in recent years, in light of the recent global recession?

that it says push the limits of perfume bottle manufacturing. Shown here is an example of ‘Eole’ patented technology (pictured top), ‘Texture’ technology (middle), and the company’s ‘In’pressive’ sculpting technology. (bottom).

You are also a specialist in decoration.

Can you explain some of the decoration techniques that you use?

Decoration has always been a key activity of our operations. We decorate not only in Guimerville, but also in our production sites at Gamaches, Beaugency and in Wayne, NJ, USA. Of course, we have more ‘standard’ operations of lacquering and silk screening, but we are also involved with Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

z Pochet has recently launched three bottle types

Both high end fragrance and cosmetics are global markets, where the brands are produced in a few locations and distributed in all countries.

For the fragrance market, the 2001 to 2012 period had an annual average growth of approximately 3.5%, which made a 40% increase during that period. In the past two years (2013 and 2014), the growth was more moderate, at around 1.5 to 2.5%. The growth of the travel retail market is compensating for a stagnation of the sales in the key markets of Europe and USA, while the Latin American market, mainly Brazil, is still growing at a high rate.

For the cosmetics market, the growth in the 2001 to 2012 period was even higher, with an average growth at 4.4% for glass products, which made a 53% increase in the period. The key markets are Europe, USA and Asia. The last two years have seen a lower growth in the first two markets, compensated by high growth in Asia.

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hot stamping, pad printing and gluing. We also work closely with our sister company, Solev, which specialises in high-end applications such as metallisation, laser engraving and sublimation.

Has decoration become more important in recent years?

As far as the evolution of decoration in our company, I would say there are two trends. The first is that for certain types of packaging the purity and the design are focused on sublimating the glass itself. On these products there is actually little or no decoration. On the other hand, there are products where decoration is truly a way to enhance the product.

“

France is a key country for our deliveries in terms of percentage.

”

other via our investment strategy, which targets installing equipment that offers the best available energy use. Since 1997 we have reduced our CO2 emissions by more than 30%.

Also, as far as volatile organic compounds are concerned, we have reduced our emissions by more than 50%.

The path to sustainability is to continuously challenge ourselves and strive to implement the best technology available for any given investment.

What are the current glass industry challenges and opportunities?

Are there any ‘green’ technologies in place at the plant?

For the fragrance and cosmetics markets, the challenge is certainly to keep a high pace of innovation. Product differentiation is a key marketing element for the end product marketeers and, if they can achieve this on the packaging, it follows that they will offer the winning product to the market.

The challenge is always keeping the right balance between the ‘handcraft’ and ‘industry’ parts of our world.

Recently, we have introduced three innovations that bring to our customers huge potential for new creative designs. The first is the ‘In’pressive’ patented technology - sculpting the inside of the glass bottle, which has never been done before. We have made a first launch with a key player in the prestige fragrance market.

The second innovation is the ‘Eole’ patented technology, which gives different possibilities of internal forms in a ‘classic’ glass bottle, also something that was not achievable until now.

The third innovation is the ‘Texture’ technology, which allows us to produce very fine external designs on the surface of the bottle.

We also have ‘e-motion’, which involves light design. 

Being involved in a high-energy use operation, it is key to keep in mind ways to improve our environmental footprint. One area on which we focus is how we utilise energy. We do this on the one hand by operating procedures and on the

Pochet du Courval, Guimerville, Blangy-Sur-Bresle, France www.pochetducourval.com/

What geographical markets does Pochet serve?

The fragrance and cosmetics markets are global markets for our customers, most of which are located in Europe and the USA. We serve our European, Middle East and Asian customers from our French plants and we serve the North American customers from our US plant.

How important is the French market?

Due to the fact that several French groups have been able to consolidate into world leaders in the fragrance and cosmetics market, with manufacturing operations in France, it is a key country for our deliveries in terms of percentage.

We deliver to our customers in France and then they deliver worldwide.

What is your daily output of glass?

www.glass-international.com

It is one million bottles a day.

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O-I invests €14 million in Labégude Owens-Illinois’ (O-I) Labégude factory in France has recently benefitted from a €14 million investment in a new furnace.

Sally Roberts went to the inauguration of the furnace to discuss what this means for the company and the region with some of O-I’s key executives.

 Around 230 people attended the inauguration of the furnace.

E

uropean operations represent 40% of O-I’s business and in 2014 the company invested €140 million into its European factories, reconstructing furnaces and upgrading manufacturing equipment.

Situated in France’s Rhône Valley, close to the wine region of Burgundy, the Verrerie O-I de Labégude was initially inaugurated in 1885, and prior to O-I was owned by French giant BSN. With 130 employees, the plant is an important source of industry for the local area, which, based in the Ardèche region, is otherwise dominated by agriculture and tourism.

“The new furnace is very important, for this reason”, noted François Pierrot, O-I’s Country Executive for France and Spain: “It signals a continued investment in the plant; the furnace is replaced every 15 or more years, so it means a further 15 years minimum of industry for the plant, and for the region.”

www.glass-international.com

O-I’s top performing plant O-I’s investment of €14 million in the Labégude plant is significant for another reason as well.

The age of the factory site, which has been operating as a glassmakers for almost 130 years, means it was designed prior to France’s modern transportation systems: “There is a lack of good transportation links to this plant, but they keep it going because it is the top [O-I] plant in the world for productivity, quality and safety,” confirmed François.

As well as being the top performing plant out of all 77 of O-I’s worldwide factories in terms of quality of production, safety, and productivity, the factory also uses 80% cullet in its batch mix, and with the help of the new furnace is focused

O-I France

With nine manufacturing plants in the country (Béziers, Gironcourt, Labégude, Puy Guillaume, Reims, Vayres, Veauche, Wingles and Vergèze), O-I France is the largest container glass producer in France.

O-I entered the French market in 1986, with the largest ever acquisition in the French container glass market: The company’s $625 million acquisition of BSN Glasspack in 2004 instantly made O-I the largest producer in the domestic market.

O-I made another acquisition in 2010 when it bought the Verrerie du Languedoc, a small glassmaker based in Vergèze, for $15 million.

Founded in 1973, Verrerie du Languedoc operates one furnace and four production lines, and produces glass containers for the beverage industry.

In 2013, O-I invested €140 million across its European operations, including €40 million dedicated to its French operations. As well as the investment at Labégude, this included new equipment at the Wingles (Pas-de-Calais) and capacity addition at the Gironcourt-sur-Vraine (Vosges) plants, both of which produce container glass for the beer industry.

A new production line will be added at its Vayres plant (Gironde), which produces bottles for the wine market. O-I also plans to invest at

Continued>>

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“

The new furnace is very important... It means a further 15 years minimum of industry for the plant, and for the region.

”

 The new furnace (above and below) indicates a continued investment of at least 15 years for the Labégude plant, one of the only industrial employers in the region.

 After the opening ceremony for the furnace, visitors were shown around the Labégude plant.

 The Labégude site predominantly produces wine bottles, as well as for the spirits industry.

The inauguration As is traditional in France, two of O-I’s clients attended the inauguration of the furnace to be named as its godmother and godfather. On this occasion Valérie Lyet, Purchasing Director of La Martiniquaise, and Michael Chapoutier, CEO of La Maison Chapoutier, were there to accept the honour on behalf of their companies.

In total, 230 people attended the event including local officials, clients, and journalists, and after the opening ceremony were given a tour of the factory.

This was followed by speeches from Francois Pierrot and Jean-Pierre François, Director of Operations for France Spain, who both reasserted the importance of the new furnace to the region and the company, and the benefits it will bring in terms of environmental footprint. r Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

its Puy-Guillaume (Puy-de-Dôme) and Veauche (Loire) plants. The former produces for the food industry, while the latter specialises in producing glass containers for cognacs.

The company has confirmed that going forward, one of O-I’s European focuses will be on wine. O-I prides itself on having has the best footprint in the wine industry, with a factory every 150km along the European wine belt which begins in Bordeaux, western France, and continues into eastern Italy. Approximately 80% of all European wine is produced in this belt, and O-I has 10 facilities in this region which gives it the flexibility to have inventory and bottles available to winemakers as and when they need them.

on reducing its energy consumption.

The plant has three production lines and produces 130,000 tonnes of glass per annum, a figure which equates to 300 million bottles a year. For the most part the site caters to the wine market, and it also produces bottles for the spirits industry. Its wine customers are situated on average less than 300km from the plant, an O-I company policy along Europe’s wine-belt that allows for a strong relationship between it and its customers, as well as reduced transportation costs and carbon footprint.

Its clients include well-known names such as Cellier des Dauphins, Pernod-Ricard, La Maison Chapoutier, and La Martiniquaise, the second largest spirits group in France.

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O-I: Interview Jean-Pierre François, Director of Operations for France-Spain at Owens-Illinois (O-I), took time out at the inauguration of Labégude’s furnace to discuss the environmental benefits that this investment will bring to the plant, and the state of the French market at the moment.  Jean-Pierre François speaking at the event.

What are the key aspects when it comes to maintaining production levels at the plant?

the bottles and use the cullet. Our cullet ratio is around 80%, which is considered a high level.

What is produced at the plant?

Electricity isn’t cheap, and we never stop. We have a lot of water, which we use as a cooling system, including around the furnace. So, energy and water are key to maintaining 24 hours a day, seven days a week production.

Does the plant consume less energy with the new furnace?

The new furnace use 100% gas. The new design of the furnace has been integral to reducing the consumption of energy. We use 10% less energy today than we did in October, before we stopped the old furnace.

The furnace design is very important for preserving energy consumption, but on top of that the way we are driving and leading is key. We are focusing on best practices; on having good quality glass, and a low energy consumption. These are two big parameters for us: Good quality of glass, and low energy consumption.

This is the best plant of the O-I world for productivity, safety, and quality. For cullet, no, but it is probably one of the better ones.

What level of cullet is used in the batch at Labégude?

When we eject bottles from the cold end we keep

“

This is the best plant of the O-I world for productivity, safety and quality.

”

Our production at this plant is dead-leaf colour, and within this colour we are able to produce a lot of different shapes, from 25 centilitres up to 1.5 litres, and mainly we produce for still wine, both red and white.

Within France we produce 600-800 different shapes. Our commercial perspective depends on the market we deliver to: We want to light weight the bottles, and for standard wine we produce very light bottles, but for a grand cru, or something like that, we produce a very heavy bottle. So, for the same bottle we can move between a weight of 300 grams to 600, or 800 grams.

Does it depend on what your customer wants, as to how heavy you make it?

Yes, for mass market it is low weight, and for quality bottles, heavy. However, there is absolutely no relationship between the breakage percentage and the weight of a bottle. It is not because it is heavy that it will break, or that it is light that it will break. We work on different technology to ensure the ‘un-breakability’ of the bottles.

What is the daily output for this factory?

It is 300 million bottles a year, and 700,000 bottles a day.

www.glass-international.com

How would you describe the French market at the moment?

It is stable. There was no increase in 2014, but also no decrease. Our customers are expecting the economy to start up in the next few months; they have an expectation of improvement.

And how is the region around Lyon faring?

Much the same as France in general, there is no difference. r

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Iris Inspection Machines Stephanie Devillard* discusses how in 14 years Iris Inspection Machines has become a leading name for the container glass industry.

Since its creation in 2001, Iris Inspection Machines has been a global supplier of non-contact camera inspection technology for the glass container industry. A subsidiary of the Wisetec Group, Iris was established to provide turnkey inspection solutions for mass-produced glass containers of any shape or colour, including wine, beer, liquor and Champagne bottles, pharmaceuticals and food containers. Jean-Luc Logel, Chairman, and Philippe Volay, Vice President, have been key drivers in the development of Iris Inspection Machines since the company’s establishment.

A team of Research and Development engineers has evolved a range of equipment to match the industry’s requirements and satisfy the inspection needs of key international customers.

z Fig 1: Iris headquarters in Bron, France.

“

To date, almost 1,000 Evolution inspection machines have been installed at more than 100 glass plants throughout the world.

”

Which areas of the glass industry do you supply equipment to?

Under the Evolution brand name, the company has developed equipment that helps glassmakers to improve their manufacturing processes and ensure the quality of production. Iris was the first to develop the 12-camera concept and introduced LED finish inspection solutions.

Iris started by serving customers in the beer and pharmaceutical glass industries but now also covers the perfumery and cosmetics sector, as well as manufacturers of drinking ware/tumblers. A particular strength is the ability to inspect many different articles simultaneously on the same line, all without contacting the products and without the assistance of mechanical rotation.

How is the company structured, and how many employees does it have?

Together with sister company Centralp, Iris employs 60 R&D engineers in the field of electronics, software and mechanics. Employing just 36 people in total, the Iris organisation has invested substantially in the recruitment of engineers, especially those involved in software and image processing.

The Iris Bron headquarters (Fig. 1) features a production workshop with the capacity to assemble and test 20 inspection machines every month. There are also two training rooms and a permanent showroom of Iris machines, together with dedicated sales, after sales, spare parts and administration offices.

What is your best selling product?

Iris’s equipment helps glassmakers to realise improvements to their manufacturing process operations in real time and to ensure the quality of output before it leaves the factory. A series z Iris’s latest machines, the Evolution 5 and the Evolution 12.

Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Can you give a brief history of the company?

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of hardware and software developments were unveiled at glasstec last October.

These improvements are retrofittable on all generations of Evolution inspection machines and are fitted as standard on the latest models.

They were successfully tested at glass container manufacturing plants in France and Switzerland for almost 12 months.

Sustainability is a key priority at Iris, in preference to revolutionary changes. To date, almost 1,000 Evolution inspection machines have been installed at more than 100 glass plants throughout the world. The standalone Evolution ultimate and Evolution dim models provide additional helpful features to users of the Evolution series of noncontact, camera-based inspection machines.

“

It took five years to gain the recognition of the European glass industry, and 10 years to become a global player.

”

Roughly what percentage of your business is to the domestic market, and how much is exported internationally?

Turnover has increased by 25% for each of the last four years. Initially, most business was conducted in Europe but today the customer base is global, including glass container producers throughout Asia, North and South America, Africa and the Middle East.

How are the current market conditions in France?

What is the greatest challenge faced

by Iris?

It took five years to gain the recognition of the European glass industry and 10 years to become a global player. Developing appropriate solutions and gaining industry acceptance takes time.

In addition, while innovation is positive, it is necessary to offer support services and generate customer trust and loyalty.

With more than 15% of turnover reinvested in R&D every year, the Iris team constantly works on the latest versions of Evolution hollow glass inspection solutions. So far, 12 different upgrades have been introduced.

The company will continue to develop products and bring solutions to the glass industry. There is still growth potential in terms of customers and product innovation for the next decade, so these markets remain the company’s focus. 

*Sales Assistant, Iris Inspection Machines Lyon, France www.iris-im.com

Despite the bad economical situation in Europe,

see u

the market for containers inspection is resilient.

In fact, it is boosted by hard competition between European glassmakers in terms of quality and also innovation. Companies such as Iris Inspection Machines that present new machines with more detection accuracy are contributing to new investments and replacing old machines.

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French supplement

Tiama MSC & SGCC Glass International spoke with Tiama, a supplier of cold end inspection equipment and hot end sensors based in the Lyon region of France.

Can you give a brief history of the company?

cold end inspection machines for the hollow glass industry (including pharmaceutical, cosmetics…).

Since 2013, Tiama has decided to enter the hot end part of glass part through the supply of sensors, with the objective of helping the glass operators improve their process. Tiama is also supplying intelligent software solutions dedicated to plant performance management.

Tiama is the product of the merge between MSC and SGCC - two major players of the hollow glass inspection market. Their first similarity is half a century’s experience.

Both companies started inside two famous glassmakers: 1963: MSC was created within BSN, as a small department, to invent on-line inspection solutions for its hollow glass production.

1973: SGCC started its existence within SaintGobain glassmaker, to perform multi-inspection on glass containers with the first star-wheel principle machine.

After developing their fields of expertise, SGCC and MSC became independent entities providing inspection machines globally.

In 2008 MSC and SGCC firms joined forces under the umbrella of the Tiama group, in order to offer a structured product range built around one strong brand.

Which areas of glass manufacturing does Tiama supply equipment to?

95% of Tiama’s turnover comes from the glass industry and 5% from the food and beverage industry, in which Tiama’s other brand Luceo provides inspection machines as well.

How is the company structured, and how many employees does it have?

Tiama’s headquarters are based in Vourles, in the Lyon region. The glass business unit operates with about 180 employees from its site in Vourles, while the ‘Food and beverage’ operates with about 30 employees from another site based in the suburbs of Rennes (Brittany) .  An example of Tiama’s MCal 4 cold end inspection equipment

Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Over the last 50 years, Tiama has been supplying

How much of Tiama’s business is dedicated to the glass industry?

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How much of your business is dedicated to research and development?

A little less than 50% of the employees are dedicated to the R&D, as we strongly believe that in our field only the ones who bring innovations will survive. More than 10% of our turnover is dedicated to R&D.

What is your best selling product?

With a 60% market share, we can say that all our range of cold end products are our best sellers, but we are really looking at great potential with our new hot end features.

Roughly what percentage of your business is exported internationally?

95% of sales are done outside France, and about 75% are done outside Europe.

Which geographic regions are currently most important to Tiama?

All regions are important to us, as we sell everywhere. It is also true that from year to year some regions are more significant than others.

How are the current market conditions in France?

www.glass-international.com

The French market is very mature market and therefore a flat market. Our sales are based on renewals and upgrades of existing machinery rather than new machines for new furnaces

48

 Hot end equipment. and new lines. Although we feel that they are suffering from the recession, our customers cannot compromise with quality: Therefore, we can say that we have felt the impact of the recession. r

Tiama MSC & SGCC, Vourles, Lyon, France. www.tiama.eu

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z IQ Track - for monitoring plant performance.

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French supplement  Artist’s impression of the new site at St.Quentin Lamotte

SGD to build France’s first new glass plant in 20 years French glass manufacturer SGD is constructing a plant that will be dedicated to the pharmaceutical industry. It is the first new glassmaking site to be built in France in 20 years. Ahead of Glassman Europe in Lyon next year, Greg Morris spoke to SGD’s Laurent Zuber, President of the Moulded Products group within the pharmacy division, about the group’s expansion.

SGD group decided last year to split its activities – glass for perfumery/cosmetic and pharmacy – as each business has very specific industrial needs and constraints. Separating the activities to better serve its customers also means having plants and teams entirely dedicated to each activity.

Within this strategic plan, a new plant dedicated to the pharmaceutical industry was needed in France to allow the current one, based in the Somme region at Mers les Bains, to fully focus on the glass for the cosmetic and perfumery industry. The new plant at St Quentin really marks a major step for our company’s new strategy.

Why did you decide to construct the plant in this particular region?

The Bresles Valley, which is at the border between Picardy and Normandy is an area that has developed a very important know-how in the glassmaking industry for centuries. To give you an idea, the SGD plant at Mers les Bains is

We are very “ proud at SGD to build a new glass plant, the first one in France in the glass industry for the past 20 years

”

the biggest plant in the world and provides glass bottles for the luxury perfume industry and the most important pharmaceutical laboratories.

In order to keep all the very precious internal know-how, it was a logical solution for SGD to build a plant in the same area allowing some synergy with the Mers plant and an easy transfer for the employees already working for the pharmaceutical division in Mers.

How will the plant be structured and how many employees will it have?

The plant will cover 28,000 square metres out of which more than a third (11,000) will be dedicated to manufacturing.

The site will employ around 300 people producing 130 tonnes of glass a day.

Can you tell us more about SGD’s pharmaceutical profile?

SGD Pharma has unique know-how in the pharmaceutical moulded glass industry but is also able to offer packaging tailor-made solutions to Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Congratulations on laying the foundation stone of the St. Quentin Lamotte plant. Why did you decide to construct a new plant?

49 Glass International April 2015

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French supplement

The plant will use the latest state of the art equipment. What ‘green’ technologies are in place at the plant and how important is the environment to SGD’s manufacturing practices?

very specific pharmaceutical needs, the quality and patients’ safety always being our first priority.

SGD Pharma has the largest industrial footprint and broader agents network.

 SGD CEO Ashok Sudan lays the foundation stone at the new site.

SGD has mentioned there were some significant human and technical challenges.

What were these challenges and how did it overcome them?

What products do you make?

SGD Pharma offers a range of glass vials. It goes from injectable, lyophilisation, all sorts of nasal, syrups and pill jars to glass baby bottles.

Parenteral packaging, though, represents 60% of our sales.

The challenges that SGD faces are indeed multiple: To have a plant of such dimensions built within a year, i.e. in a very short time, is the first challenge to achieve both technically and financially since €50 million is invested in the plant.

The other challenge SGD needs to address is the gradual manufacturing transfer, as well as 300 employees being relocated to the plant.

All the employees are regularly informed about the new plant’s developments and the 2015 calendar involving their transfer.

We are very proud at SGD to build a new glass plant, the first one in France in the glass industry for the past 20 years, and everybody is excited and is looking forward to seeing it in a year’s time. r

How has the pharmaceutical market performed in recent years, especially in light of the recent global recession?

SGD Pharma has known a steady progression of its sales over the past years. + 2.2 % in 2013 versus 2012, and + 6% in 2012 versus 2011. This is based on our global presence, and on the acceleration of sales, particularly in emerging markets.

www.glass-international.com

What markets will the new plant serve? Will it just be domestic based or will it export as well? Approximately what percentage will be exported?

The new plant will be dedicated to the production of type I moulded glass exclusively. This specific type of glass is not only sold on the domestic market but all over the world.

In fact, 80% of SGD Pharma’s global production is dedicated to the export market. It is true for type I too. Our customer portfolio is diversified and we serve most of the international pharmaceuticals laboratories.

We made sure to conform to the latest environmental rules and requirements. SGD Pharma was the first to have all its sites certified ISO 15378: 2011 and is now implementing a programme of certification for ISO 14001 (environmental management and OHSAS 18001 (management of health and safety in the workplace) for all its sites.

Our Kipfenberg facility in Germany is already certified OHSAS 18001 (management of health and safety in the workplace), ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 15378, ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) and ISO 50001 (Energy Management).

Furthermore, part of our energy in the future plant of Saint Quentin will be produced by the local wind field.

 An SGD transparent glass filling line.

SGD Group, France www.sgdgroup.com

How important is the French market to SGD, and is this market is set to grow?

The French market represents 15% of SGD Pharma’s sales, but it is a mature market.

Unfortunately the prospects of the French pharmaceutical industry are not favourable. That is why our strategy of growth is oriented towards Europe and the rest of the world. The emerging markets represent the source of our future growth.

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French supplement

Ermi Glass is in control Sally Roberts spoke to Marina Nevidoma* to find out more about France’s Ermi Glass, a company that specialises in glass inspection machinery.

 Ermi inspection equipment on display at glasstec 2014.

Ermi Glass Control was created by Mr. Didier Cloarec, who has 30 years of experience in glass inspection machines activity.

Building from his multi-discipline knowledge and accompanied by his team, Mr. Cloarec also introduced new technology into the field of hollow glass inspection.

The quality of our products and services has enabled our company to develop a strong customer network in France, increase our presence in Europe, and since 2010 to promote our business around the world’s glass industry market place.

What areas of the glass manufacturing process do you supply equipment to?

Our company is a partner of glass factories for hollow glass quality control. Today the activities of Ermi Glass Control Company are divided into three main departments: The spare parts department for

“

The domestic market represents 30% of our total sales, the European market represents 50% and 20% for the rest of the world.

”

carousel glass inspection machine M or CO type; the refurbishment department for carousel glass inspection machine M or CO type (mechanical, motorisation, electronic and PLC control); and the carousel inspection machine manufacturing department under Ermi Glass Control’s brand.

How is the company structured and how many employees does it have?

The main Ermi ‘direction’ is the development of new technologies, as well as their implementation and follow-up inside the glass factories.

The most important sectors within the company are: The research and development department; manufacturing department; and technical and installation service/after-sales service.

The most important element of our partnership is a permanent interaction between customers’ expectations and our technical evolution.

Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Can you give a brief history of the company?

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French supplement

The domestic market represents 30% of our total sales, the European market represents 50% and 20% for the rest of the world. If we compare these statistics with 2010, we can see that the ratio between the French domestic market and export was much different: It was split 60%/40% in percentage terms. This means that our presence in foreign markets has increased by almost two times during this period.

Which geographic regions are currently most important to Ermi? Has this trend changed over the last few years?

Ermi has increasingly focused on export activity, with the aim to extend and diversify our customer base. Five years ago we worked mainly with France and neighbouring European countries. Today we provide our services throughout the world.

Over the last few years we have enhanced our presence and developed our brand recognition, especially in the BRICS countries but also in the Middle East, the Far East and the African continent.

In other words, our attention is fixed on the major emerging economies.

Thanks to this cooperation, we have created our best technologies such as PCA or Multi 32 inspection machine.

The Ermi team is represented by 35 members: nine staff in the research and development department; 12 employees in the production department; six workers in the technical and installation service/after-sales service, and eight staff in the management/sales department.

Ermi is recruiting new people in 2015 to strengthen its R&D and after sales departments.

www.glass-international.com

What is your best-selling product?

Today one of the best selling products is PCA technology. This is an electronic inspection machine upgrade. The principal feature is the replacement of the electronic control by PLC. This guarantees improved ease of use and maintenance.

A PCA upgrade implies total replacement of the electronic elements. Nonetheless, all control types that have already been installed on the machine are saved and are totally compatible with PCA technology. It is also possible to add new inspection systems thanks to management by PLC. The most important advantages of PCA technology are: Maintenance cost reduction due to the lack of specific electronics; management

by PLC with components that can be easily purchased on the market, which certify that in the future the components will not become outdated; the possibility of remote maintenance; and the simplification of Rack electronic architecture.

Roughly what percentage of your business is to the domestic market and how much is exported internationally?

Due to general global trends, our main business strategy today is to maximise the expansion of our market. Thus, we always pay particular attention to our domestic market. It is important for us to maintain our position in France.

How are the current market conditions in France? Have you noticed business improving after the recession?

“

Our main business strategy today is to maximise the expansion of our market. Thus, we always pay particular attention to our domestic market.

It is very important for us to maintain our position in France.

�

Today we maintain our strong position in France.

The market has stabilised and our turnover is approximately the same from year to year, especially in the spare parts market.

This year we observed a slight increase to 30% in the inspection machines market and of course we noted a growth in the market of our new technology PCA that was mentioned above.

All projects started in 2013 were approved and financed in 2014. Therefore, we can confirm the positive dynamics of the French market at this time.

Looking ahead to the next five years, where do you think the company’s efforts will be focused?

Every day Ermi progressively strengthens its position in the inspection equipment market for container glass manufacture, not only in France but all around the world.

That is why over the next five years we are going to increase first of all our team, namely the technical department, after-sales service and also the research and development department.

We are also working on expanding our product range and services. Our main objective is an offer of a complete solution for cold end equipment.

Our engineers are working hard to make Ermi an indispensable partner for glass factories for all issues of quality inspection for hollow glass. r

*Sales Manager, Ermi Glass, Lyon, France www.ermi77.com

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Furnaces

A study in the use of slag in a float glass melting furnace Ashrok Chakrabarty* describes the benefits and disadvantages of the use of blast furnace slag in glass, and outlines a study at an Asahi float glass furnace.

M

elting energy and batch soda ash constitute the largest contributor towards the product cost of manufacturing glass irrespective of type.

As such, there have always been efforts by glass scientists and glass technologists to optimise melting phenomena by changing batch compositions and also sometimes adding a new component in the glass melting batch to get the desired results. The author was associated with one such effort in an Asahi float furnace in India to reduce the fuel oil cost for glass melting in a float regenerative furnace with side firing.

Since blast furnace slag was available in abundance in the vicinity of the plant, it was thought worthwhile to try and use the slag along with the batch in a predetermined calculation and monitor the results in reference to oil consumption vis a vis glass quality in the final product.

www.glass-international.com

Why slag ?

Blast furnace slag contains some glassy materials (such as Al203, Si02, CaO, MgO) and as such is supposed to be included in the network modifying structure of glass.

The total batch volume could be reduced per ton of molten glass, given the high concentration of glass forming oxides in the slag. Because of a reduction in the total volume of batch to be melted, there is expected to be a reduction in the energy requirement per tonne of molten glass. The adverse effect on the environment because of mining of minerals is also mitigated with the addition of slag as a batch material.

The main advantage of using slag is that it helps in the refining of glass and also reduces fuel consumption in the melter. It helps melting by supplying CaO to react with silica. It helps refining by influencing the redox state of batch by making it more reducing .

crushed slag grain size

retention

chemical analysis

>500 microns

<0.2%

oxides %

<106 microns

55-60%

SiO2

z Table 1. A typical chemical analysis blast furnace slag.

Slag cannot be used in amber glass production as the colour of glass is sensitive to the redox state of batch and slag acts as a reducing agent which acts negatively in respect of colour tone of selenium.

The easy availability in the nearby areas also ensured that the transportation cost would be lower. One problem was the average size of the slag particles as received from steel plants. It was necessary to use an already existing crushing plant (earlier used for crushing lump feldspar). The batch plant already had a spare silo. The idle capacity of the limestone pneumatic conveying system was used for transporting the crushed slag to the silos.

From the slag silo, it was conveyed through a belt conveyor to a weighing scale and then to the batch mixer. After allowing sufficient time for dry and wet mixing, the glass batch was fed to the furnace through the dog house.

Oxide

%

SiO2

71.46

Al2O3

1.23

CaO

7.69

MgO

5.12

Na2O

13.6

K20

0.2

SO3

0.57

Fe2O3

0.11

TiO2

0.02

31-33%

Al2O3

18-22%

Fe203

<1%

CaO

28-32%

MgO

8-12%

Slag analysis result From the chemical analysis result, it is evident that the use of feldspar in the batch has to be reduced and also the addition of dolomite will have to be changed to keep the same glass composition.

A typical glass composition, produced from the furnace, without using any slag is in Table 2. This is the actual composition found during analysis in the lab using an XRF spectrometer. All the glass samples produced during the experiments were also analysed using the same instrument. The analyst was also the same person.

Experimental batch melting Before venturing into actual use of slag in glass batch melting, it was necessary to conduct one crucible test in the laboratory to assess the effect of slag reaction with silica, eventually leading to a reduction of glass temperature, which will finally result in the reduction of fuel consumption in the float furnace.

Accordingly two small batches were prepared, one with slag and the other without slag. Melting was carried out in an induction furnace following the melting schedule and the resultant glass melt was cast in the form of a slab which was subjected to the annealing process.

z Table 2. A typical glass composition produced from the furnace, without using any slag.

Continued>>

54 Glass International April 2015

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Furnaces

With slag

Slag free

Formula

With slag

Slag free

CO

CO

Formula

With slag

Slag free

With slag

Slag free

With slag

Slag free

a

a

Cm

Cm

Cp (cal/gm)

CP (cal/gm)

SiO2%

69.02

62.98

0.1657

11.437

10.436

0.0005

0.03451

0.03149

247.3314

237.7793

302.2396

289.8455

Al2O3%

5.82

14.05

0.1765

1.027

2.480

0.0005

0.00291

0.007025

3.41338

3.41338

3.41338

3.41338

FeO3%

0.127

0.126

0.1449

0.018

0.018

72.459

69.661

TiO2%

0.03

0.03

CaO%

8.32

7.47

0.1709

1.422

1.277

0.0004

0.003328

0.002988

MgO%

4.44

4.04

0.2142

0.951

0.865

0.0005

0.00222

0.00202

Na2O%

11.52

10.80

0.2229

2.568

2.407

0.008

0.09216

0.0864

K2O%

0.45

0.42

0.1756

0.079

0.074

0.004

0.0018

0.00168

SO3%

0.26

0.20

0.189

0.049

0.038

0.008

0.00208

0.0016

17.551

17.595

0.139

0.133

0.308

sp heat taken on the basis of 153 Deg C as per the theoretical calculation: to take 1kg of glass from 1572 to 1734 extra heat required:

49.81592Kcal

49815.92Kcal

Calorific value of FO is: 10000 Kcal

so in 1 ton batch fuel savings will be:

4.981592 LTR (assuming firing is done only by furnace oil)

assume pull 550mt/day @23mt/hr. Oil saving is

114.5766 lt/hr

% of oil saving

z Table 3. Result of glass analysis and the corre-

2.98 furnace oil requirement for non slag batch is 3850 lit per hour

Melting temp. calculation

sponding temperatures.

slag

slag free 915.10

SiO2%

69.02

62.98

14.53

1002.86

TiO2%

0.03

0.03

48.34

1.55

1.26

CaO%

8.32

7.47

37.67

313.41

281.39

MgO%

4.44

4.04

30.42

135.06

122.90

Na2O%

11.52

10.80

39.94

460.11

431.35

K2O%

0.45

0.42

24.92 Expected melting temp

11.21

10.47

1924.21

1762.47

1572.79

1734.53

Temp difference in batches 161.74 Deg C

z Table 4. Effect of slag on melting temperature of glass batch.

The annealed glass was subjected to analysis in an XRF machine. The glass analysis results and the corresponding temperatures and other parameters are in Tables 3 & 4 .

The calculated values are based on the theoretical formulae for calculating the glass temperatures and the specific heats of soda lime silicate glass. Although, crucible melting hardly represents the dynamics of melting mechanism and the viscous flow phenomena within the glass melt in the furnace, at least one assessment could be made as to what extent the glass temperature would be affected by incorporation of slag within the batch melt.

There was a predecided melting schedule in the crucible with a sufficient soaking period in between two temperatures. So it was fairly reasonable to assume that reactions between silica and the oxides from slag had taken place which was evidenced by an increase in RO content in glass with slag as compared to glass without slag. The abnormal values for Al2O3 could be attributed to corrosion from the crucible .

From the theoretical consideration, it

could be safely concluded that slag had the potential to reduce the melting heat requirement and the potential saving was attractive. But unfortunately no conclusive forecast could be made on the possibility of improving the fining mechanism. Given the constraints of a crucible test, it was decided to go for a plant scale trial with a 550 tpd glass melting furnace.

Trial As discussed earlier in the article, we had one spare charging hopper and a 90 mt silo used for charging slag in the batch house.

We decided to continue with the trial for at least one month to ensure the effect of slag batch on the melting heat. At the same time we also wanted to keep a close check on the health of the furnace.

Samples were collected on regular basis - two times a shift – while a tab was also kept on the hourly fuel consumption, keeping the crown temperature the same as before.

It was going smoothly with an anticipated fuel saving, but after a week or

so the product glass started increasing in seed counts and at one point it went out of the acceptable limit. The SO3 content also increased.

We initially thought it to be out of the new melting environment and a changed redox during glass melting. We tried to control the redox in the melt by varying the salt cake percentage. There was a lot of trial and error in terms of changing different temperature settings, although it was designed as per the original plan.

But we started loosing glass ribbon in the cutting section and recirculated cullet also started accelerating the intensity of problems. A lot of defects, in particular gaseous inclusions, started to appear in the final glass.

It was then decided to stop using slag and revert back to the original batch composition. Slag was gradually eliminated from the batch. Bubble counts also started diminishing and finally disappeared.

We had collected a lot of glass samples during the period when the intensity of the problem was at its peak. The idea was to have a logical analysis as to what caused the appearance of gas inclusions and a sudden increase in seed counts.

With support from TNO, it was possible to find out an acceptable explanation for the problem.

But that is a separate and prolonged study altogether and this author plans to discuss the same sometime in the future.

Ashok Chakrabarty, CEO Deltaplus India, (former Vice president at Asahi India Glass), Kolkata, India Email ashok.chakrabarty@deltaplus.in

www.glass-international.com

so in 1 ton batch

55 Glass International April 2015

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CATALOGUE

6-7 MAY 2015 CITÉ CENTRE DE CONGRÈS, LYON, FRANCE

FRONT COVER CAT.indd 1

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Our in-house melting experts can help you improve combustion to increase glass production, reduce fuel consumption, improve glass quality, and reduce emissions.

Including NOX, SOX, CO2 and particulate matter every day.

To make glass better, put us in the mix.

From the very first oxygen enrichment applications to our latest Cleanfire® burners, we’ve delivered safe, low-emission oxy-fuel solutions for over 50 years. And, right now, in addition to providing reliable gas supply, our team is optimizing production for hundreds of furnaces all over the world.

Call 800-654-4567 to put the skills and experience of our global team to work for you. When you want improved melting, add one key ingredient. Us.

tell me more www.airproducts.com/betterglass

© 2013 Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

U.S. +1 800 654 4567 Europe +44 (0) 800 389 0202 Asia +886 2 2521 4161 South America +55 11 3856 1651

Photo credit: Marie Perrin, Centre de Congrès de Lyon.

Welcome to Glassman Europe 2015, and to the beautiful city of Lyon - heart of the French glass manufacturing industry, and an ideal setting for the container glass manufacturing community to meet and do business.

We hope that whether you are exhibiting at the show or just visiting, you will develop new relationships and reaffirm old ones, taking advantage of the fact that suppliers for the entire glassmaking process are housed under one roof.

More than 50 leading suppliers from across Europe will be exhibiting at the show, which this year includes a VIP area designed to facilitate private meetings between exhibitors and their clients in a comfortable setting.

This year’s conference theme is ‘Energy efficiency and environmental solutions in the glass industry’, a key topic for the glass manufacturing industry at the moment, especially in Europe.

The conference has a fantastic line up, and will provide visitors with the opportunity to hear directly from manufacturers such as our key note speaker O-I, as well as Ardagh, Stolzle, and Bormioli Rocco. Associations such as FEVE, FERVER, and the Food Packaging Forum are also giving presentations, as are the Container Glass Alliance, IHS, Siemens and Heye International among others.

We would like to give special thanks to the sponsor of the conference, Heye International, and to Iris Inspection Machines for its help in organising this exhbition in its home town.

Looking ahead to the next Glassman event, we will be hosting Glassman Latin America in Mexico this September. Mexico’s bustling container glass industry is sure to provide a successful setting for everyone involved. Interested parties should enquire with a member of the Glass International team.

We hope you have a rewarding show here at Glassman Europe, and we look forward to welcoming you again in the future.

WELCOME

Glassman Europe 2015 Catalogue

VENUE: Cité Centre de Congrès, Lyon, France 09.30 - 17.30 09.30 - 16.00

www.glass-international.com

Opening hours: Wednesday 6th May 2015 Thursday 7th May 2015

57

ORGANISER: Quartz Business Media Ltd

WELCOME page.indd 1

Glass International April 2015

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DECORATION TECHNOLOGIES

KBA-KAMMANN GmbH Bergkirchener Str. 228 路 D-32549 Bad Oeynhausen (Germany) Fon +49 (0) 5734 5140-0 路 Fax: +49 (0) 5734 5140-5130 mail@kba-kammann.com 路 www.kba-kammann.com

Flexible.

Precise.

Innovative.

STAND No

COMPANY NAME

STAND No

Agr International

A09

Heraeus Deutschland

E07

All Glass

A03

Heye International

E01

Aqualat

H03

Iris Inspection Machines

F01

Aventics GmbH

E04

KBA-Kammann

C05

BDF Industries

D02

Lahti Precision

G13

Bernard & Bonneford

H07

Lhoist

H08

Car-Met

F04

Messer France

G08

Commersald Impianti

B04

Metavil

C11

Condat

C12

Motim Fuced Cast

Cortex Glass

E05

Refractories

C07

Electroglass

G01

MSK Emballage

F06

EME Maschinenfabrik

C01

Nikolaus Sorg

C01

Emmeti

D03

Pennine Industrial

Ernst Pennekamp

D12

Equipment

A01

FIC (UK)

B07

Pneumofore

F05

FICO Industrie

D13

Precitec France

C09

FlammaTec

B07

Reckmann

B01

Fonderie Valdelsane

A12

Rofin Baasel France

H01

Forglass

E10

Ross Europa

D09

GMPA

G07

S.I.G.M.A.

B05

Glass Service

B07

Sipac

D03

Henry F. Teichmann

A08

Sogelub

F02

Thimon

C06

VDV Lubricants

E06

Vidromecanica

C10

VMA

E02

Wall Colmonoy

C04

Zecchetti

D07

Zippe Industrieanlagen

G06

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COMPANY NAME

EXHIBITOR LIST

Glassman Europe 2015 Catalogue

Exhibitor information correct at time of going to press. Photo credit: Marie Perrin. Centre de Congrès, Lyon.

59 Glass International April 2015

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ENTRANCE

REA

REGISTRATION A

FLOOR PLAN

Glassman Europe 2015 Catalogue

Exhibitor information correct at time of going to press.

60 Glass International April 2015

FLOOR PLAN.indd 3

4/9/15 8:40 AM

615 Whitestown Road, Butler, PA 16001, USA Tel: +1 724 482 2163 sales@agrintl.com www.agrintl.com Booth: A09 Agr International offers a variety of equipment and services specifically designed to meet the quality assurance needs of the global glass container manufacturing, filling and packaging industries. Agr’s products include high throughput, on-line inspection and process monitoring systems for containers and packaging products, automated laboratory products and a variety of manual gauges for use in the laboratory or on the production floor. Agr’s automated OmniLab system is a robust, accurate, repeatable and reproducible measurement system that offers seamless integration of Agr’s dimensional gauging and pressure testing units. The OmniLab system provides robotic handling, precision dimensional gauging, multi-axis thickness measurement and pressure testing of both round and nonround containers. As an industry leader for over 85 years, Agr is committed to providing the glass container industry with technologically advanced products and services available for quality control and productivity improvement. Agr products can be found in over 120 countries.

All Glass Via Cesare Sarti 20, Traversetolo, 43029 Parma, Italy +39 0521340810 info@allglass.it www.allglass.it Booth: A03 All Glass is recognised as a worldwide leader for the supply of turnkey and tailormade cold-end lines and palletizing systems in the glass industry. Thanks to flexible and customised solutions, All Glass production range covers specific needs of glassworks factories: Cold-end conveying lines including cullet conveyors, accumulation tables, bottle over-turners, bottle elevators and lowerators; special devices including vibrating plates, bottle dividers, sorters, spacers, orientators; bulk bottles palletizers including highly experimented robot configurations; tray formers; shrink packaging machines for pharmaceutical and food glass containers; pallet handling lines including roller and chain conveyors, deviators, shuttle cars and finished pallet

labellers. Key to the All Glass team’s success is the research and development in direct symbiosis with its clients and the use of only first-class components and longterm tested elements.

Aqualat Freiburger Allee 77, 71034 Böblingen, Germany +49 7031 78 71 660 kontakt@aqualat.de www.antractiveplus.de Booth: H03 Aqualat provides high quality, Russian anthracite products to the European market and shipments to European customers.

‘Antractive plus’ is an advanced technology for glass production and is recommended for colourless and mass-dyed glass including float process and for colourless and coloured glass container production.

‘Antractive plus’ is a glass carbon additive designed by Russian company ‘TERS’ and specially manufactured for the glass industry from anthracite coal. It meets technical standard requirements and quality and ecology requirements ISO 9001 & 14001.

A reductant in the clarification process in clear sheet glass manufacture. The criterion of evaluation of ‘Antractive plus’ melting characteristic is a high-quality molten refined glass in the production of massdyed glass in Fe2O3 –Na2SO4 – C system.

The colour grade of the glass changes from colourless to dark bronze depending on ‘Antractive plus’ concentration. The product is highly processable and does not clod, it has good flow characteristics and can easily be mixed with other components of charge.

‘Antractive plus’ is characterised by a high carbon content (up to 97%), uniformity of grade size and stability of chemical composition. This defines the effectiveness of glass melting and provides its stability and reproductability.

Aventics

Tooth Chain Drives, Zur Dessel 14, 31028 Gronau (Leine), Germany +49 51825870 toothchain@aventics.com www.aventics.com/toothchain Booth: E04 Aventics conveyor and drive tooth chains IS-machine conveyor belts for high performance, laser welded pins, regular and

extended pitch, patented TRILEG design, improved pitch consistence. Wear-reduced two pin rolling pivot joint. HPC tooth chain drives for optimised and heat-resistent take-out gears. Pneumatics cylinders, valves, valve systems, and accessories.

Quick and easy product modifications.

From modifying the range of a pressure regulator to developing a new controller, highly-integrated electronics introduce new possibilities. Additional special functions for valve units, pressure separation, installation of electro-pneumatic pressure regulators, boosters, or integrated switching valves. Aventics is a globally active manufacturer of pneumatic components and systems. The company is also a specialist supplier of drive and control solutions for the marine industry and commercial vehicles, as well as inverted tooth chains for production processes. Since the start of 2014, the former subsidiary of Bosch Rexroth has been operating as a standalone company under the name of Aventics. The company employs approximately 2,100 staff worldwide. In addition to locations in Laatzen near Hanover and Gronau/ Leine (Germany), Bonneville (France), Eger (Hungary), Lexington (USA), and Changzhou (China), Aventics has an extensive sales network and is represented in more than 40 countries worldwide. www.aventics.com

BDF Industries

Viale dell’Industria 40, VI 36100 Vicenza, Italy +39 0444286100 bdf@bdf.it www.bdf.it Booth: D02 BDF Industries is a leading company in the hollow glass market with melting furnaces, forehearths, feeders, IS machines and related control systems. The synthesis of specific excellences, BDF Industries, BDF Servis, TDE Macno, and BDF Energy allows the group to share technological knowhow and innovation, as well as expertise and enthusiasm. This makes it possible to understand and to satisfy the requirements of the industrial sector, qualifying the group as a privileged partner in the worldwide glass market.

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Agr International

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Bernard Bonnefond 7 Allée Mathieu Murgue, Terrenoire, 42100 Saint Etienne, France + 33 4 77 95 30 03 jean.coquatrix@bernardbonnefond.com www.bernardbonnefond.com Booth: H07 Bernard Bonnefond is one of the world leaders of special electrotechnics, since 1925. The core business of the company is Varivolt, an on-load stepless variable voltage transformer designed for electric heating, melting, and testing purposes. Worldwide known equipment, especially in the glass and steel industries. Bernard Bonnefond Group exports its production worldwide, with exports worth more than 80% of total turnover. There are several sales offices throughout the world: Czech Republic; Japan; Korea; China; Indonesia; USA office (variablevoltage@bernardbonnefond. com). Divisions: Bernard Bonnefond, manufacturing: Varivolts; on-load step less variable voltage transformers, from 30KVA to 30MVA; induction regulators; special coils and reactors; any custom made or special electrotechnic equipment. Bernard Engineering, offering: Control command system, specially adapted to the Varivolt; industrial installation and commissioning services of equipment; expertise in electric boosting for glass furnaces. Amppelec, supplying: Special bus-bar links for high current (1000 to 50000A).

www.glass-international.com

Car-Met via Cavour 9, Cimetta, 31010 Treviso, Italy +39 438794784 info@carmetspa.it www.carmetspa.it Booth: F04 For 45 years Car-Met has dedicated its activity to the hollow glass and decorating industry. The company has chosen to develop its own technology with the aim of improving the performance of its machines, always ensuring a lower consumption.

Car-Met has the complete construction of its machines under its own control: Design, structure, mechanical components, combustion installation, burners and the electrical installation are carried out inside the Italian plant. This enables us to control and ensure our qualitative standard and delivery terms, and allows us to always have spare parts available to satisfy customers’ requests. Production: Annealing lehrs; decorating lehrs; toughening Lines; lehrs for special uses; mould pre-heating

ovens; cross conveyors; stackers; hot glass scrapers.

Commersald Impianti via Labriola 42, 41123 Modena, Italy +39 3351043819 massimo.trigari@commersald.com www.commersald.com Booth: B04 Commersald Impianti is a leader in the production of welding machines, welding plants and complementary welding products based on the PTA (Plasma Transferred Arc) process. Born as a branch of Commersald at the end of the 90s, in just a few years and with only 10 employees, the company asserted itself rapidly in Italy, in Europe and throughout the world obtaining extraordinary results.

Commersald Impianti’s success is owed to a high form of specialisation in the development of PTA welding with powder, obtained through constant investment in research and innovation added to prior experience coming from the Commersald Group as well as the ability to re-interpret the tradition of business in a new production-orientated company, with a high technological content. Almost all production is internally manufactured by Commersald Impianti itself, starting off from machinery design to software programming, and ending with the installation of the plant itself in the client’s workshop. This way we guarantee the total quality control of each component, as well as top customer service reliability.

Condat 104 Avenue Frédéric Mistral, 38670 Chasse-sur-Rhône, France +33 4 78 07 3838 info@condat.fr www.condat.fr Booth: C12 Condat, a manufacturer of technical lubricants for more than 160 years with a worldwide presence, presents a complete range of products and equipment meeting requirements of all glass processes. For packaging glass: Soluble lubricants for shear spray and for the delivery system; neat oils for the delivery system; dualcomponent coating for the delivery system; swabbing compounds for moulds. A complete range of maintenance products: mineral/synthetic oils and greases for IS machines. For flat glass: Cutting oils; coolants for edge grinding and drilling; solutions for water treatment; interleavant powders; a complete range of maintenance

products. Beyond furnishing lubricants, Condat makes a commitment to develop a partnership with its customers and offers them a complete service: Analysis of products and water, environmental advice, assistance concerning regulatory information. Condat also proposes suitable equipment: Dosing units, oil separator, specific dosing units, in order to allow substantial gains on lubricant consumption.

Cortex Glass Sint Jansstraat 2F, 9712JN Groningen, Netherlands +31 508517127 holtkamp@cortexglass.com www.cortexglass.com Booth: E05 Cortex Glass develops and sells innovative Hot-End Inspection, Process Monitoring and Process Control systems for the container, perfume, cosmetics and table ware glass industry. Our innovative GobWatch camera system monitors the complete gob forming process, automatically controls the gob weight and inspects every gob for inclusions (seeds, bubbles, stones, cords). The GobWatch system can reject glass products which are made from gobs with inclusions and other gob defects directly after the IS-machine.

The GobWatch system is very precise and easy to use. Our new ISWatch infrared camera system (available second half 2015) monitors the bottle forming process.

The system creates thermal images of hot bottles leaving the IS-machine with one or more infrared cameras. The ISWatch inspects every hot bottle for inclusions and the system gives real time cavity related information about the wall thickness, glass temperature, glass symmetry, ware spacing, etc. Bottles with defects can be rejected with the ISWatch before they enter the lehr.

Electroglass 4 Brunel Road, Manor Trading Estate, Benfleet, Essex, SS7 4PS UK +44 (0)1268 565577 info@electroglass.co.uk www.electroglass.co.uk Booth: G01 Electroglass is an independent specialist in all-electric glass melting, conditioning, electric boosting and related systems.

Based on decades of experience and ongoing technical development, Electroglass provides up to date technology for Electric Furnaces, Forehearths and Boost Systems

for all glass types, as well as Precision Control Bubblers and ancillary equipment, such as Glass Level Sensors, Throat Heating and Drain Systems. Our scope of supply includes design and specification, equipment supply and installation, plus commissioning of individual specialised equipment or complete system packages.

All Electric Furnaces ranging from 200kg to over 250 tonnes/day provide operating economy and glass quality assurance.

High efficiency Convection Current Control Boost systems improve furnace pull and glass quality and enable significant tonnage increases with simultaneous reductions in electrical consumption. All Electric Forehearths for both volatile and nonvolatile glasses offer substantial energy cost savings compared with other all-electric and gas-fired designs. Electroglass high quality, insulated, water-cooled electrode holders are available for horizontal and vertical applications. Based in southeast England we offer worldwide service to our customers in all five continents with local representation in many regions.

EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen

Wockerather Weg 45, 41812 Erkelenz, Germany +49 93525070 contact@eme.de www.eme.de Booth: C01 Leading worldwide supplier of batch and cullet handling technology, engineering, equipment and services for float, containers, display glass, fibres, special glasses etc.

Emmeti Via G. Galilei, 29, 42027 Montecchio Emilia (RE), Italy +39 (0522 )861911 emmeti@emmeti-spa.it www.emmeti-spa.it Booth: D03 Emmeti designs and produces bulk palletizing and de-palletizing systems for glass, PET and HDPE containers as well as case packers and baggers.

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Königsfelder Str. 38-42, 58256 Ennepetal, Germany +49 15254550713 mmastrolembo@pennekamp.de www.pennekamp.de Booth: D12 Pennekamp is a leading manufacturer of Lehrs, Handling Systems and Glass Coating. This refers to Container Glass, Float and Display Glass, Solar Glass and Automotive Glass Processing. Our scope of supply includes: Container Glass Annealing Lehrs, Roller Annealing Lehrs (Float, Solar & Display), Decorating Lehrs, Toughening Lehrs, Automotive Glass Processing, Servo Lehr Stackers (one to four axis), Ware Transfers, Water cooled and segmented Cross Conveyors, Dosing Units, Cold End Sprays, Belt Cleaning Brushes, Burner Low Emission Unit (BLEU), Mould Oven

F.I.C. (UK)

Cuxhaven Way, Penzance, Cornwall, TR20 8HX, UK +44 1736366962 general@fic-uk.com www.fic-uk.com Booth: B07 F.I.C. (UK) Limited designs and supplys all-electric furnaces as well as electrical boosting systems for a wide range of glass types and manufacturing processes including TFT, float, fibre, container, and borosilicate. We also have a wide range of electrode holders including our High ‘Q’ holder in which the cooling circuit is replaceable in under 10 minutes, and our Maxi ‘Q’ weld-free holder in which there is no weld inside the furnace refractory blocks making it ideal for more aggressive glasses. In addition, we specialise in a number of glass conditioning options such as our Isothermal unit for glass conditioning in the forehearth or distributor to eliminate top-to-bottom and side-to-middle temperature differences. This system will significantly improve thermal homogeneity in coloured glasses and high productivity forehearths in flint glass. We also offer heat extraction systems to extract heat from the glass to aid glass conditioning and reduce gas consumption by the use of removable water-cooled tubes. In addition, these water-cooled tubes can be used to prevent premature shutdown of a furnace by rendering safe worn refractories. F.I.C. is a world leader in energy substitution

systems and alternative technologies including nano-particle coating technology in partnership with Emisshield & NARCO.

FICO Industries

16, rue Juiverie, F-69005 Lyon, France +33 426235151 info@fico.fr www.fico.fr Booth: D13 FICO Industries, established in 1958, is an international supplier for the container and tableware glass industry. FICO Industries, by manufacturing, supplying and commissioning all systems & lubricants, offers the complete process for the shear/ tube/scoop lubrication. FICO Shear Spray Systems and AKTAFATT Shear Spray Lubricants can improve performance in container and tableware glass production and reduce machine downtime. FICO Spray Bars for Shears, Tubes & Scoops provide efficient cooling and lubrication with an individual spray adjustment.

FlammaTec Rokytnice 60, 75501 Vsetin, Czech Republic +42 0571498566 sales@flammtec.com www.flammatec.com Booth: B07 FlammaTec spol. s r.o. (Czech Republic) and its subsidiary FlammaTec GmbH (Germany) have become leading suppliers of advanced burner technology for glass furnaces. FlammaTec was founded by two partner companies (STG Combustion Control, and Glass Service) as a joint venture. Six years since its inception in 2008, FlammaTec has already supplied well over 1500 burners to over 90 projects on float, container, tableware and special glass furnaces. Such a strong reference clearly shows the benefit of this innovative combustion technology that offers high performance solutions to FlammaTec customers. During Glassman Europe 2015 FlammaTec will introduce its FlexOxy burner. FlammateTec burners improve heat transfer from combustion to the glass melt and thus also improve furnace efficiency and lower emission when replacing convential burners. FlammaTec offers the following advanced LoNOx burner types: • Underport Gas Injector, Flex or Freejet • Underport

Gas/Oil Dual Injector, Flex of Freejet • Underport Heavy Oil Injector (also can be used for backup solutions) • Sideport Gas Injector, Flex • New Oxy/Gas Burner

Fonderie Valdelsane

Strada di Gabbricce 6, Monteriggioni, 53035 Siena, Italy +39 0577304730 com@fonderievaldelsane.com www.fonderievaldelsane.com Booth: A12 Special cast iron and alloys for glass moulds.

Forglass ul. Królewska 57, Kraków, 30-081, Poland +48 12 293 45 34 office@forglass.eu www.forglass.eu Booth: E10 Forglass cooperates with glass works, providing them with a complete range of services related to investments, maintenance and current repairs. On-going cooperation with established companies in the glass industry enables Forglass to effectively conduct renovations or constructions of entire manufacturing plants: From obtaining permits, to launching the production process. We have successfully combined steel, ceramic, electric and gas systems, utility installation.

As we operate on the international market, our strategy is to work for the most demanding customers.

Glass International

Quartz House, 20 Clarendon Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 1QX, UK +44 (0) 1737 855000 glass@quartzltd.com www.glass-international.com Booth: D06 Glass International offers readers the latest news from across the hollow, container, flat, and speciality glassmaking industry and is the official media partner for the global Glassman events. The magazine is distributed in hard copy and

also in digital format to over 30,000 industry professionals. In addition to 10 English language issues per year, it is published twice a year in Chinese and once a year in Russian in order to reach non-English speaking markets. The magazine focuses on industrial, economic and environmental issues affecting the industry and includes articles discussing the latest developments and challenges in glass manufacturing.

Regular features comprise of global news and events, company and country profiles, and previews and reviews of important industry conferences and exhibitions.

Glass Machinery Plants & Accessories Via Antonio Gramsci 57, Cormano, 20032 Milano, Italy +39 02 66306866 luciano.molina@glassonline.com www.glassonline.com Booth: G07 GMP&A reaches about 100,000 active glass professionals, with more than 11,000 copies per issue circulated worldwide and 25,000 digital copies. GMP&A promotes glassware industry suppliers at the most important international glass industry exhibitions and conferences, where the magazine is distributed free of charge to visitors and exhibitors. Furthermore, GMP&A supports advertisers with ‘Suppliers Guide - Yellow Pages’ in local languages for those events held in countries where English text requires strong back-up in the local language (Chinese, Russian, etc.).

Glass Service Rokytnice 60, 75501 Vsetin, Czech Republic +42 0571498511 info@gsl.cz www.gsl.cz Booth: B07 Glass Service (GS), headquartered in the Czech Republic, is a leading consultant in the field of glass melting, furnace control, operation, troubleshooting, and optimising furnace designs. GS programmers have developed in-house mathematical modelling software enabling the optimisation of glass melting and combustion processes in glass furnaces and forehearths. More than 600 different projects have been completed using GS software. Presently a new version of furnace modelling software (GFM 5.0) is being developed. GFM 5.0 uses Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Ernst Pennekamp

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a new generation of non-orthogonal mesh, which enables proper representation of all geometric features and local refinement.

GS has its own laboratory for glass defect analysis and analyses more than 2,000 defects yearly. Additional testing capabilities utilise basic and applied research in the field of glass melting, and GS has invested considerable effort into developing a new technology called a ‘Supervisory Advanced Control System’ using our proprietary software known as the Expert System - ESIIITM. More than 90 installations have been successfully deployed worldwide. GS supplies selected raw materials to the glass industry.

Glassman Latin America Quartz House, 20 Clarendon Road, Redhill, Surrey RH1 1QX, UK +44 (0) 1737 855000 glass@quartzltd.com www.glassmanevents.com/latin-america/ Booth: D06 We are pleased to announce that Glassman will be returning to Mexico in 2015 and stand sales are already underway.

The Glassman Latin America exhibition will provide a platform for the industry to present the latest technology for environmentally aware production and processing of glass containers.

www.glass-international.com

Henry F. Teichmann 3009 Washington Road, McMurray, PA 15317, USA +1 724 941 9550 dchen@hft.com www.hft.com Booth: A08 Henry F. Teichmann, Inc. is a world leading glass process engineering contractor dedicated solely to the glass industry. For 68 years, we have been providing turnkey projects that include engineering, procurement, technical service, construction and project management for clients worldwide.

Those projects consist of complete float, fibreglass and container plants. Teichmann also provides turnkey services for speciality plants such as sodium silicate, borosilicate tubing, television, tableware and lighting products. In addition to converting TV glass furnaces and fibreglass furnaces to oxy-fuel firing, HFT has worked with PPG in converting two PPG float furnaces into oxyfuel firing. Henry F. Teichmann has teamed up with PPG to provide solutions and up-todate float technologies, including oxy-fuel

technology to the glass industry worldwide.

Heraeus Deutschland Heraeusstr. 12–14, 63450 Hanau, Germany +49 6181353705 pmcomponents@heraeus.com www.heraeus-performance-products.com Booth: E 07 Heraeus is a globally active precious metal and technology group based in Hanau in Germany. The areas of competence include precious metals, materials and technologies, sensors, biomaterials and medical devices, quartz glass and speciality light sources. Heraeus platinum products have been at the forefront of glass development and manufacture for 160 years. Throughout the 20th century Heraeus supported the development and manufacture of high grade glass products by providing new and improved platinum materials and fabricated components for every conceivable application in industry and research laboratories and is a leading global supplier for any kind of platinum components for all aspects of glassmaking. Our platinum materials, which include the entire spectrum of alloys containing rhodium, iridium and gold, are supplemented by the addition of Dispersion Hardened Platinum materials (DPH), which are ideally suited to extremely high temperatures. We provide our customers with the best choice of material including the configuration and computation of the precious metal components complemented by a professional After Sales Service and life cycle management.

At Glassman Europe Heraeus presents components made of platinum or platinum alloys for the production of technical, optical and decorative glasses. Glass fibre bushings made of platinum alloys.

Heye International

Lohplatz 1, 31683 Obernkirchen, Lower Saxony, Germany +49 5724 26 452 sales@heye-international.com www.heye-international.com Booth: E01 We are Glass People - Heye International sets standards as a global player in high performance solutions and customeroriented services for the container glass

industry. Thus, Heye International became a leader in the industry. What makes the difference is our passion for glass. We have got a Mission: We are Glass People - with experience and passion aiming for the highest results. Our Mission stands for customers’ satisfaction, our experience in glass and for the glass experts at Heye International. Our portfolio contains: HiPERFORM - IS-Machines and forming technology; HiSHIELD - Inspection technology & quality solutions; HiTRUST - Greenfield Projects, modernisations or production optimising and technical assistance. Talk with our experts at this year’s Glassman and learn more about the latest innovation in Hot End and Cold End to boost your productivity.

Iris Inspection Machines

KBA-Kammann Bergkirchener Str. 228, 32549 Bad Oeynhausen NRW, Germany +49 172 7237639 burgy@kba-kammann.com www.kba-kammann.com Booth: C05 KBA-Kammann is a leading manufacturer of screen-printing equipment for the decoration of hollow ware, such as beverage bottles, cosmetic flacons and drinkware.

State of the art CNC technology allows printing on all shape articles. Additional processes, such as in-line hot stamping, pad printing and camera inspection for registration and final print quality control can be integrated. Latest developments include digital printing solutions with ink jet printing heads integrated in our well-known K15CNC and K1 CNC series.

Lahti Precision Parc du Chêne, 14 rue du 35ème Régiment d’Aviation, 69500 Bron, France +33 4 72 78 35 27 contact@iris-im.fr www.iris-im.com Booth: F01 Iris Inspection Machines provides inspection solutions for glass containers of any shape or colour, including wine, beer, liquor and Champagne bottles, pharmaceuticals, perfumes and food containers. A team of dedicated Research and Development engineers has evolved a range of equipment to match the industry’s demanding requirements and satisfy the inspection needs of key international customers. The recent move to new premises in Lyon (France) represents an important step for Iris, who expects its new premises to be an important tool, helping the company to always better serve the industry. The company has based its development on a long-term partnership with glassmakers in the field of glass defects detection, as well as on an exceptional knowhow in the most innovative vision technologies. Iris was the first to develop and propose a 12 camera inspection machine. The success of Iris is due not only to the exceptional efficiency of its Evolution machines range but also to the excellent support provided by engineers worldwide.

Thanks to a network of international agents and technical service centres, Iris is able to support customers throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australia.

Ahjokatu 4A, 15800 Lahti, Finland +358 382921 glass@lahtiprecision.com www.lahtiprecision.com Booth: G13 Lahti Precision is a specialist in powder and bulk material handling. Lahti’s core expertise covers precise dosing, weighing, mixing and material handling. Lahti provides expert services related to the core knowhow. Our customers operate in all glass industries, in cement based drymix and other process industries. Lahti Precision is one of the world’s leading suppliers of glass batch plants and plaster and mortar plants and the market leader in industrial weighing solutions in Finland.

Lhoist Rue Pra Paris, 38360, Sassenage, France +33 4 76 27 84 10 josselin.dayde@lhoist.com www.lhoist.com Booth: H08 Lhoist Group is a global leader in lime, dolime and minerals. With headquarters in Belgium, we are present in 25 countries with more than 90 facilities around the globe. We differentiate our business by being close to our customers, understanding their needs Continued>>

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Messer France 25 rue Auguste Blanche, 92816 Puteaux Cedex, France +33 1 40 80 33 00 info@messer.fr www.messer.fr Booth: G08 Messer is a leading industrial gas company, active in over 30 countries in Europe and Asia, as well as Peru and Algeria. From acetylene to xenon, the Messer Group offers a diverse product portfolio to the market. Messer produces industrial gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, helium, acetylene, shielding gases for welding, speciality gases, medical gases and many different gas mixtures. The Messer Group has research and competence centres in which it develops applied technologies for the use of gases for every sector of industry, such as oxy-fuel technology for furnaces, burner and heating equipment, cutting and welding equipment, etc.

Metavil Estrada da Maceira 60, Picassinos, 2430-444 Marinha Grande, Portugal +351 244572960 m.baroseiro@metavil.pt www.metavil.pt Booth: C11 Metavil has operated in the market of moulds and accessories for the glass industry since 1977, with the purpose of presenting the most appropriate solutions to its clients’ challenges. Based on a business philosophy of continuous improvement of methods and work processes, Metavil has a series of technical and technological resources that, together with know how and a team of committed professionals, allows it to develop innovative and effective solutions that guarantee the total satisfaction of customers.

Motim Fused Cast Refractories

Timföldgyári Str. 9-13, 9200 Mosonmagyaróvár, Hungary +36 96574 100 fusedcast@motim.hu www.mmotim.hu Booth: C07 Motim Fused Cast Refractories is recognised as a world leader producing fused cast AZS and alumina refractories, and refractory castables. Our products are used in glass manufacturing furnaces. Our aim is to meet the increasing requirements of the users and markets, by the quality of the products manufactured and services provided. We supply 96% of our products for export to 40 countries, and our reputation is associated with excellent quality internationally. Our products: AZS type: Zirkosit-S32; Zirkosit-M36; Zirkosit-Y41; Alpha-Beta Alumina: KorvisitAb. Change is continuous. Development of the factory’s technology and its equipment span the complete manufacturing process: High performance production line for moulding plate manufacture; new moulding workshop; production technology modified at several points; increased machining capacity; extended pre-assembly area; new crushing plant for the preparation of recycled in-house material. All this ensures permanent high Motim-quality.

MSK Emballage

ZI rue des Genêts, 1600 Reyrieux, France +33 (0)4 74 08 83 00 info@mskemballage.fr www.mskemballage.fr Booth: F06 For around 40 years MSK has been a partner for the container-glass industry.

MSK supplies the entire cold end, from the lehrs to the warehouse, from one single source: Bottle conveyors, glass palletisers, pallet shrink machines, shuttle cars, pallet conveying systems and its associated control software. Additional modules such as the MSK Looptech for securing several

layers of bottles, label systems, traymakers or the MSK EMSY HMI software make the MSK machines unique and easy to use. MSK machines are highly flexible due to their modular design and can be enlarged with the minimum requirements of maintenance and spare parts, and without changing the control concept. MSK offers flexible packaging solutions from semi-automatic machines to fully automatic complete packaging lines to fit in all situations.

Nikolaus Sorg

Stoltestr. 23, P.O. Box 1520, 97816 Lohr am Main, Germany +49 9352 5070 aker@sorg.de httwww.sorg.de Booth: C01 Sorg has been serving the glass industry since 1872. Together with our group companies we offer total solutions from raw material delivery through to glass conditioning, with the services to keep our equipment running long and reliably. Sorg solutions provide our customers a low total cost of ownership over the life of the investment. Sorg is a leading worldwide supplier of glass melting and conditioning technology, engineering, equipment and services for float, containers, flat glass, fibres, tableware, solar glass, etc. We currently have customers in more than 70 countries, and there are more than 250 Sorg designed furnaces in operation throughout the world. Latest innovative products include an integrated concept for batch handling at the furnace, comprising a batch preheater, EME-NEND batch charger and IRD doghouse concept. This combination offers major benefits – including less energy consumption, less NOx and less batch carry-over to the regenerators.

Pennine Industrial Equipment Manor Croft Works, Skelmanthrope, HD8 9DT, UK +44 (0)148 4864733 sale@pennine.org www.pennine.org Booth: A01 Pennine Industrial Equipment has been involved in the manufacture and supply of ‘silent’ inverted tooth conveyor chains for the glass industry for over 30 years.

During this time there have been ever increasing demands placed on the glass industry. Pennine has continued to improve its product range ensuring that we remain a market leader within the glass container handling sector. Our range of patented HPL’s (Head Protector Links) is a typical example of our willingness to work closely with the Hot End engineers, with a view to improving our customers overall efficiency.

Pennine’s ‘Premium’ conveyor chain has been especially developed to meet the ever-increasing demands of the glass industry and can significantly improve the handling of: Bottles; jars; pharmaceutical and perfume ware; stemware; tableware and drinking glasses; pressed ware such as bowls, car lights and larger items such as glass bricks.

Pneumofore

Via N. Bruno,34, 10098 Rivoli, Italy +39 011 950 40 30 info@pneumofore.com www.pneumofore.com Booth: F05 Designer and manufacturer of rotary vane vacuum pumps, vacuum systems and air compressors to cover the pneumatic requirements of IS machines, which translates into a low operational cost, long durability and efficiency. Pneumofore rotary vane technology is gaining ground in the glass industry thanks to numerous references with renowned reliability and durability.

Vacuum pumps/industrial vacuum systems based on rotary vane technology. Ready-to-use, sliding vane, air cooled vacuum pumps up to 6480 m3/h capacity and 0.5 mbar (a) residual pressure, with five years of efficiency guaranteed.

Designed for 120,000 hours of operation without repair, and easy maintenance.

Optional are variable speed, hot climate, central and remote control versions.

Designed for continuous, heavy-duty operation in glassworks worldwide. Vacuum system design and engineering for a low total ownership cost. Compressors sliding vane, single-stage, lubricated, ready-to-use and air-cooled air compressors from 2.5 to 10 bar (g), up to 500 kW, capacity up to 5120 m3/h, with the highest compressed air purity. As for all A-Series compressors, several options are available like VS drive, Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

and providing them with the high-quality products their activities require. Lhoist supplies the glass industry with pure dolomite, limestone and lime products of consistent chemical composition and particle size under the Visucal brand.

Also, our Sorbacal products based on lime hydrate are tried-and-tested additives effective for the treatment of flue gas for glass melting tanks for separating out SO2 und HF amongst other things.

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remote control or connection to any PLC system, heat recovery and extraordinary air-cooling for tropical countries, up to 55°C environmental temperature.

Precitec

employees we are one of the leading manufacturers of temperature sensors. We specialise in the production of high quality thermocouples for the glass industry: +Thermocouples PtRh-Pt type S/R & B + various designs (customised) for all applications (Forehearths/Feeder/Stack/ Crown). From single up to triple elements, also with platinum. Please test us!

www.glass-international.com

Rofin Baasel Les Carrés du Cengle - Bât. E, Chemin de la Muscatelle, 13790 Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, France +33 6 27 66 31 16 contact@precitec.fr www.precitec.fr Booth: C09 Concepteur et fabricant de capteurs optique haute resolution pour l’industrie (epaisseur, distance, forme) en laboratoire ou ligne de production. Applications réussies; Mesure d’épaisseur des verres creux ou plats; Nano-rugosité sur surfaces polies; Contrôle de planéité; Mesure d’épaisseur de couches minces; Topographie 3D des datamatrix; Analyse de craquelures ou rayures.

Les capteurs Precitec CHRocodile permettent l’acquisition temps réel d’un point, plusieurs points ou d’un profil. La gamme de mesure en épaisseur s’étend de quelques microns à 37mm avec des précisions toujours submicroniques.

Les capteurs sont conçus pour travailler dans un environnement sévère.

Manufacturer of high resolution optical sensors for industry inspection, in the laboratory or inline. Inspection successful applications: Flat and hollow glass thickness measurement; Nano-roughness on polish surface; Flatness inspection; Thin film or coating thickness measurement; 3D Topography of datamatrix; Defect analysis as cracks. The Precitec CHRocodile sensors allow you to measure in real time one point, several points or a profile. The measuring range in thickness mode starts at some microns to reach 37mm with a resolution submicronic. The CHR sensors are designed to work in harsh environment.

Reckmann Werkzeugstr.19-23, 58093 Hagen, Germany +49 2331 3501 0 info@reckmann.de www.reckmann.com Booth: B01 Quality ‘Made in Germany’. With more than 45 years experience and with 160

14-16 Allée du Cantal, ZI La petite Montagne Sud, 91090 Lisses, France +33 01 69 11 36 36 info@rofin.fr www.rofin.fr Booth: H01 Laser and laser systems manufacturer.

Fibre lasers, YAG, CO2 and diodes for welding, cutting, perforating and marking applications.

Fabricant de sources et systèmes laser industriels. Laser de type fibre, YAG, CO2 et diodes pour des applications de soudage, découpe, perforation et marquage.

Ross Europa Robert-Bosch-Str. 2, 63225 Langen, Germany +49 610375970 info@rosseuropa.com www.rosseuropa.com Booth: D09 Ross is a global supplier of premium pneumatic controls. In the field of glass container production, the company has established itself as an innovative problem solver featuring state-of-the-art products and service covering all applications on IS-Glass-Machines. Our line of services includes: Conversions and modernisations, regardless of the manufacturer; complete plug-and-play solutions, assembly included; refurbishment of existing pneumatic concepts; repairs, overhauls, solutions specifically tailored to ISmachine operation; integration of safety packages; multiple valve block solutions (conforming to LOTO requirements); valve block solutions for the blow mould side.

All this can be provided as plug-and-play installations. With an array of factory sales and service centres as well as highly trained distributors located around the world, Ross is ready to support manufacturers of

glass machines in their efforts to optimise production and reduce overall costs. Ross is dedicated to developing matchless solutions to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of customers’ equipment and operations. Ross has a global reach with a local touch, ready to provide customers with its very best everywhere.

S.I.G.M.A. Via delle Grigne 12/A, CO 22070 Locate Varesino, Italy +39 0331 823195 sigmaref@tin.it www.sigmaref.it Booth: B05 S.I.G.M.A. Group has specialised in the production of refractory materials for the glass industry since 1990. It supplies a full high quality range of materials including Sillimanite, Mullite, Zirconmullite, Zircon, High alumina, Fireclay, Fused cast, Insulating, Magnesite, Silica, Special cements and concretes. Sigma Italy produces 3,200 tons/year of special pieces and 6,500 tons/year of pressed material.

Completing the range, about 5,000 tons/year are produced by our partners and controlled by our technicians both in production and auditing. S.I.G.M.A. SRLU is the new facility located in Plovdiv, Bulgaria commissioned in March 2014 with a manufacturing capacity of 2,500 tons/year of vibrocast shaped pieces. Today, S.I.G.MA. Group is a leader in Europe in terms of capacity, prices and lead times of shaped pieces.

Sipac Via Berettinazza, 25, 43010 Fontevivo (PR), Italy +39 (0521) 611811 sipac@sipac.pr.it www.sipac.pr.it Booth: D03 Sipac designs and produces bottle and package conveying systems, elevators, lowerators and other package transportation systems.

Sklostroj Turnov 210, 51261 Prepere, Czech Republic +420 (481) 350200 sklostroj@sklostroj.cz www.sklostroj.cz Booth: F03 Sklostroj Turnov was established in 1950. 97% of turnover is generated from exports. Part of GC Machinery holding of Netherlands. Subsidiaries: Sklarske stroje

Znojmo; Sklostroj Turnov RU; Sklostroj International; and Sklostroj Kempten.

List of products: Forehearths; stirrers; feeders; shear mechanisms; gob distributors; IS and ISS forming machines; Hot End control and drive systems; E-pushers; conveyors, cross conveyors and stackers; LPBB technology; annealing lehrs; mould preheating ovens; single liners, cold end conveyors, visual inspection, cullet conveyors; glass scrapers (granulators); pallet handling systems; shrink wrapping lines; general machinery production - jobs out of the glass industry.

List of services: personnel training. As a matter of hot end operators, we have a training room equipped by single section IS machine. Project ‘ITT’ interactive, training terminal; technology support and implementation. We are experienced with implementation of NNPB or LPBB advanced technologies; supervised assembling, commissioning, technical support; servicing – regular visits to customers by our service team; overhauls, revisions, general repairs, repairs; mould design; selection and recommendation of variables; spare parts and variables management; customising of systems – modifications upon customer’s requests; general lay-out, planning, project management.

Sogelub

Zoning Industriel de Tournai Ouest I, 13 Rue de la terre à briques, 7522 Marquain, Hainaut, Belgium +32 69 59 09 49 glass@sogelub.com www.sogelub.com Booth: F02 Since 1976, our mission has been to develop and produce innovative lubricants for the hollow glass industry. Whether for perfumery, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, tableware or food industry, Sogelub provides reliable, clean, high-end solutions for the whole of your manufacturing process including maintenance of your equipment. Located in the heart of Europe, our factory offers unrivalled proximity and responsiveness. Thanks to our European identity, we comply with all current standards, particularly where the environment, health and safety are concerned. With our strong culture Continued>>

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Glassman Europe 2015 Catalogue

Thimon Savoie Hexapôle, 170 rue Louis Armand, 73420 Mery, France +33 4 79 61 00 44 com@thimon.com www.thimon.com Booth: C06 Leading performance to overwrap glass products. Thimon, a worldwide leader in overwrapping glass products for more than 40 years bases its know-how on a continuous innovation policy and a real culture of dialogue with its customers.

Thimon, a manufacturer which proposes an all-comprehensive range of overwrapping technologies, puts its expertise at the service of your hollow glass objects, fitted out with systems patented and widely referenced abroad.

VDV Lubricants Steenkaaistraat 17, 9200 Baasrode, Belgium +32 52203952 francois.breye@vdv-lub.com www.glassline.be Booth: E06 VDV Lubricants specialises in the manufacturing, distribution and sales of lubricants used for different applications in the glass industry. Today, a full line of products is available to the glass container industry under its own brand name Glassline: IS oils, swabbing compounds, conveyor lubricants, synthetic shear lubricants, also for press, domestic and crystal wares and TV screens. VDV Lubricants therefore always strives to work in a very close partnership approach with its customers to find the right answers and solutions to their specific questions and to develop, through our R&D activities, the products who meet the technical and environmental requirements. As a result of such close collaboration, VDV Lubricants has recently developed new products that are still far ahead of competition in the aspect of health,

safety and environment. VDV Lubricants is proud to be able to serve society with the product of the future. During the LyonGlassman exhibition, VDV Lubricants will inform visitors of the latest development of spraying swabbing compounds by automatic robot application.

Vidromecanica Rua Central Nº22, Garcia, 2430-017 Marinha Grande, Portugal +351 244555060 vidromecanica@vidromecanica.com www.vidromecanica.com Booth: C10 Vidromecanica manufactures equipment for the glass industry. Development, design and manufacture of machinery, and development of the control system for glass production lines is handled by our specialists. In close cooperation with our custumers and glass industry businesses, we are engaged in the development of individually tailor-made high performance machines. With equipment supplied to over 56 countries we continue the reputation of providing customers with quality engineered solutions capable of operating on today’s modern high speed glass production lines. Vidromecanica’s main equipment is: - Annealing and Decorating Lehrs - belt tempering lines for tableware - spindles toughening lines for stemware - chemical tempering ovens - roller annealing lehrs for flat glass / U-glass / laminated glass - thermal shock test systems - moulds pre-heating kilns stackers + cross conveyors + ware transfers - hot end coating hoods - cold end coating spraying equipments - scraper conveyors and cullet crushers. Vidromecanica, is ISO9001:2008 certified. With machinery solutions for many applications of the glass industry, equipment from Vidromecanica is in operation worldwide. Our engineering is synonymous for safety of functioning and investment.

VMA Graefinauerstrasse 2, Ot Wuembach, Wolfsberg, 98704 Thueringen, Germany +49 3678558711 fred.vogler@vma-online.de www.vma-online.de Booth: E02 VMA specialises in manufacturing noncontact measuring and control equipment for the glass industry, such as thickness and stress measuring equipment for float glass and LCD, TFT, PDP, STN display glass,

diameter and wall thickness measuring equipment for tubing lines and tube processing including control, regulation and visualisation systems as well as thickness measuring instruments for the on-line container glass inspection. Supply of turnkey systems including training and longterm service is guaranteed.

Wall Colmonoy Alloy Industrial Estate, Pontardawe, Swansea, SA8 4HL, UK +44 (0) 7973 442860 amarhamid@wallcolmonoy.co.uk www.wallcolmonoy.co.uk Booth: C04 Surfacing alloys: A pioneering and leading developer of surfacing alloys for the glass container industry, Wall Colmonoy has been protecting and restoring glass moulds for over 65 years. Wall Colmonoy provides specially formulated wearresistant Colmonoy (nickel-based) and Wallex (cobalt-based) Surfacing Alloys including Tungsten Carbide Composite alloys for plunger manufacture. Colmonoy and Wallex have outstanding metallurgical and physical properties which extend the life of parts subject to wear & corrosion.

The alloys are applied by a wide range of techniques, including PTA, HVOF, spray and fuse, powder welding, and Laser Cladding.

Surfacing equipment: Spraywelder System and Fusewelder Torch are specially developed to extend the service life of glass mould components.

Precision components: One source for precision cast or fully machined glass components. Glass Components include: • Baffle inserts & valves • Plungers • Guide rings & plates • Neck ring inserts

Zecchetti

very wide range of speeds. Long experience and cooperation with the biggest glass factories has placed Zecchetti among the worldwide leader manufacturers. The ability to propose, manufacture and supply the AS/RS Warehouse system as well, allows Zecchetti to act as a supplier for the complete empty container cold end section.

A particular feature of Zecchetti is its aim to make its customers’ lives easier, namely by studying with them and then realising ‘made to order’ solutions.

Zippe Industrieanlagen

Alfred-Zippe-Strasse 11, 97877 Wertheim, Germany +49 93428040 zippe@zippe.de www.zippe.de Booth: G06 Zippe has dedicated all its activities to the international glass industry. Acting as a partner in the area of melting material preparation, the design, manufacturing, installation and commissioning of plants, on a turnkey basis if required, Zippe offers: Batch plants; engineering; control and automation technology; modernisation of existing plants both mechanical and electrical; modernisation of electronic control and weighing systems; processing plants for factory cullet, post-consumer glass, special glass waste; batch chargers; glass level controllers; batch preheating; maintenance and service. Zippe is a competent and reliable partner not only offering delivery of equipment but also consulting and engineering.

In-house educated engineers and supervisors install and commission the plants. Comprehensive documentation informs the customer about all plant functions and gives technological details, allowing problem solving by telecommunication dialogue.

Via Galileo Galilei, 1/1-A. 42027 Montecchio Emilia, Italy +39 0522 867411 f.cavatorta@zecchetti.it www.zecchetti.it Booth: D07 Zecchetti proposes conveying/palletising turnkey lines for empty glass containers, from lehr discharge up to finished pallet warehousing. The lines can cope with almost all kinds of articles (including pharmaceutical vials for which Zecchetti can propose packaging lines) and with a

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of research and development, we are continuously improving our products to provide manufacturers with the highest quality and long-lasting optimisation of their productivity. Sogelub carries on its ongoing research programmes in partnership with specialised private institutes and universities. These programmes give us knowledge of the glass/lubricant/machine interactions, which directly contributes to the continuous improvement in our lubricants for the hollow glass industry.

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THE NEXT GENERATION CONVEYOR TOOTH CHAINS

Uwe Gillert, Industry Management for the glass industry, has established close contact with the customer in field service and has a great understanding for the “hot topics” in the glass industry.

Excellent guiding characteristics, a long service life, reliable delivery: our laser-welded inverted tooth conveyor chains are convincing in any production setting.

They offer a wide variety of application options: from hot bottles to entire vehicles, they carry the product precisely to the right location. Reliable, safe, efficient and always tailored to the specific application.

Visit us at

GLASSMAN LYON, Stand E04 AVENTICS GmbH Zur Deßel 14 31028 Gronau (Leine), Germany www.aventics.com/toothchain toothchain@aventics.com Tel +49 5182 58724

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VMA GmbH Zecchetti Srl

BDF Industries S.p.A. Ross Europa VDV Lubricants NV

Control systems, forming

Annealing lehrs/kilns Car-Met Srl Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Vidromecanica LDA

BDF Industries S.p.A. Cortex Glass Heye International GmbH VDV Lubricants NV

Control systems, hot end

Electroglass Ltd EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Lahti Precision Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Vidromecanica LDA Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

BDF Industries S.p.A. Cortex Glass Fico Industrie SAS Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc Heye International GmbH Precitec France Reckmann GmbH VDV Lubricants NV

Batch plant

Control systems, melting

Henry F. Teichmann Vidromecanica LDA EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Lahti Precision Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

BDF Industries S.p.A. Bernard Bonneford Electroglass Ltd EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH F.I.C. UK Ltd Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Reckmann GmbH VDV Lubricants NV

Batch chargers

Batch/cullet preheaters EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Lahti Precision Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

Coatings, hot/cold end Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG Fico Industrie SAS Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Vidromecanica LDA Wall Colmonoy

Combustion equipment FlammaTec Spol. S.R.O. Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Messer France Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG

Container forming machinery/components Aventics GmbH BDF Industries S.p.A. Fico Industrie SAS Ross Europa VDV Lubricants NV

Control systems, cold end Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG F.I.C. UK Ltd Heye International GmbH Precitec France VDV Lubricants NV

Cullet handling systems EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Lahti Precision MSK Emballage Sarl Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Vidromecanica LDA Zecchetti Srl Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

Decorating equipment, flat glass Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG

Decorating equipment, hollow glass Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG KBA-Kammann GmbH MSK Emballage Sarl

Decorating lehrs Car-Met Srl Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Vidromecanica LDA

Decorating materials Heraeus Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG

Engineering/plant design services BDF Industries S.p.A. EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc. Henry F. Teichmann Inc. Heraeus Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG Heye International GmbH Lahti Precision Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Ross Europa GmbH VDV Lubricants NV Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

Feeder mechanisms Aventics GmbH BDF Industries S.p.A. Fico Industrie SAS Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc. Heraeus Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG Heye International GmbH Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG

Fire polishers Vidromecanica LDA

Flat glass production machinery Aventics GmbH EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Rofin Baasel France VDV Lubricants NV Vidromecanica LDA VMA GmbH

Forehearth assemblies Electroglass Ltd Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc. Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Reckmann GmbH

Gases, industrial Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Messer France

Handling & packaging equipment, cold end All Glass Srl Aventics GmbH MSK Emballage Sarl VDV Lubricants NV

Handling equipment, hot end Aventics GmbH Heraeus Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG Heye International GmbH Pennine Industrial Equipment Ltd VDV Lubricants NV Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

Ampoule/vial forming machinery

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Glassman Europe 2015 Catalogue

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Glassman Europe 2015 Catalogue

Vidromecanica LDA

Inspection equipment, flat glass Precitec France VDV Lubricants NV VMA GmbH

Inspection equipment, hollow glass Agr International BDF Industries S.p.A. Cortex Glass Heye International GmbH Iris Inspection Machines Precitec France VDV Lubricants NV Vidromecanica LDA VMA GmbH

Melting furnaces, day tanks BDF Industries S.p.A. Bernard Bonneford F.I.C. UK Ltd Glass Service Inc Henry F. Teichmann Inc Heraeus Deutschland GmbH

Melting furnaces, pot BDF Industries S.p.A. Bernard Bonneford Glass Service Inc Henry F. Teichmann Inc Heraeus Deutschland GmbH

Laboratory equipment

Moulds, glass forming

Agr International Glass Service Inc Heraeus Deutschland GmbH Heye International GmbH Rofin Baasel France VMA GmbH

Fonderie Valdelsane S.p.A. Heraeus Deutschland GmbH Metavil Pneumofore S.p.A. VDV Lubricants NV

Laminated glass machinery

Mould maintenance equipment

Rofin Baasel France VDV Lubricants NV

Commersald Impianti SRL Rofin Baasel France

Lehr belts/rollers

Oxy-fuel technology

Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co. OHG VDV Lubricants NV Vidromecanica LDA

Lehr loaders/unloaders

FlammaTec spol s.r.o.

Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Henry F. Teichmann Inc Messer France Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG

VDV Lubricants NV Vidromecanica LDA

Palletisers

Lubricants Condat FICO Industrie SAS Sogelub S.A. VDV Lubricants NV

Melting furnace heat up/cool down www.glass-international.com

Glass Service Inc Henry F. Teichmann Inc Heraeus Deutschland GmbH Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG

BDF Industries S.p.A. Bernard Bonneford Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc Heraeus Deutschland GmbH Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG

Melting furnaces, continuous BDF Industries S.p.A. Bernard Bonneford Electroglass F.I.C. UK Ltd Forglass sp. z.o.o.

All Glass Srl Aventics GmbH Emmeti S.p.A. MSK Emballage SARL VDV Lubricants NV Zecchetti SRL

Plant utilities Aventics GmbH Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Henry F. Teichmann Inc Heye International GmbH Pneumofore S.p.A. Rofin Baasel France

Process control equipment

Refractories, insulating

Agr International Aventics GmbH BDF Industries S.p.A. Cortex Glass Glass Service Inc Heye International GmbH Lahti Precision MSK Emballage SARL Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Precitec France Reckmann GmbH VDV Lubricants NV Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

S.I.G.M.A. S.R.L.

Processing machinery, flat glass Aventics GmbH Rofin Baasel France VDV Lubricants NV VMA GmbH

Processing machinery, hollow glass Aventics GmbH BDF Industries S.p.A. FICO Industrie SAS MSK Emballage SARL Ross Europa GmbH VDV Lubricants NV

Project management services Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Heye International GmbH Lahti Precision MSK Emballage SARL Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

Raw materials Aqualat Aventics GmbH Fonderie Valdelsane S.p.A. Glass Service Inc Lhoist Wall Colmonoy

Refractories, glass contact Motim Fused Cast Refractories Ltd S.I.G.M.A. S.R.L.

Refractories, secondary S.I.G.M.A. S.R.L.

Shrinkwrapping equipment Aventics GmbH MSK Emballage SARL Thimon VDV Lubricants NV Zecchetti SRL

Spinning machines VDV Lubricants NV

Tableware forming machinery VDV Lubricants NV

Technical assistance/training BDF Industries S.p.A. EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen GmbH Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Glass Service Inc Heye International GmbH MSK Emballage SARL Thimon VDV Lubricants NV Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

Temperature measurement equipment BDF Industries S.p.A. Cortex Glass F.I.C. UK Ltd Glass Service Inc Nikolaus Sorg GmbH & Co. KG Reckmann GmbH

Tube drawing machinery VDV Lubricants NV

Turnkey glass plant construction Forglass sp. z.o.o.

Henry F. Teichmann Inc Heye International GmbH Zippe Industrieanlagen GmbH

Pollution control systems FlammaTec spol s.r.o.

Presses Aventics GmbH VDV Lubricants NV

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History

Prof. John Parker Turner Museum of Glass and ICG

Growing panes Prof. Parker provides an overview of the growth of greenhouses and their popularity in the Victorian era. temperature extremes and maintain an appropriate humidity. Thus ventilation and heating are required at different times. Within the structure plants must be irrigated, while controlling light levels offer an additional way to extend a crop’s growing season. An almost closed system facilitates the exclusion of pests but insects for pollination are still necessary - should diseases enter, eliminating their spread can be difficult.

Different plants also demand different conditions e.g. alpine flowers require a dry environment, imitating the conditions they experience when covered by snow during winter at high altitudes.

As the greenhouse environment has been brought under increased control, botanists have conceived new ways to improve their operating efficiency.

For example CO2 enrichment of the atmosphere can increase growth rates.

If the CO2 is imported from a power generation plant (or similar) then there may be associated tax credits because of the reduced carbon footprint.

Incorporating space for housing animals e.g. a chicken coop within the structure could reduce overall energy consumption.

Greenhouses have allowed horticulture to develop to the level of factory farming.

One greenhouse complex in Andalucia, Spain covers 200km2; 0.25% of the land area in the Netherlands is covered by these structures, producing €4.5 billion of vegetables, fruit and flowers a year.

What, though, has been the role of glass in these structures and are the words glasshouse and greenhouse truly synonymous? The early Roman structures did not use glass panes but rather oiled cloth or mineral sheets. The rapid growth in greenhouses from the 17th century though would not have been possible without the increased skills of the glassmaker to produce large glass sheets of sufficient optical quality.

The golden era of the greenhouse in England was during the Victorian era, where the largest glasshouses

yet conceived were constructed, as the wealthy upper class and aspiring botanists competed to build the most elaborate buildings. Good examples exist in the pioneering Kew Gardens.

Joseph Paxton, who had experimented with glass supported by iron in the creation of large greenhouses as the head gardener for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, in Derbyshire, designed and built the Crystal Palace in London, for both a horticultural and a nonhorticultural exhibition. Other countries created similar structures.

London’s burgeoning population, improved transport links and the removal of the Window Tax in 1845 all led to the expansion of greenhouses between 1850 and 1950, initially for basic food production but eventually for exotic fruits and flowers. Development around London occurred particularly along the Lea Valley and was vital during WWII in encouraging food self-sufficiency.

Sadly much of this industry has moved to warmer climes and plastics have replaced glass, being considered cheaper and more mechanically durable against, for example, hailstorms. The stability of glass to chemical, biological and UV degradation remains its strength though.

It also transmits more UV radiation, which may or may not be a good thing. In this respect I sometimes question the old adage that people in glasshouses should not throw stones. r

Bibliography “Greenhouse.”

New World Encyclopedia. 16 Jan 2014, 16:49 UTC. 2 Mar 2015, 17:05 <http://www. newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index. php?title=Greenhouse&oldid=977681>.

Prof Emeritus John Parker, Curator of the Turner Museum of Glass at Sheffield University, UK Email j.m.parker@sheffield.ac.uk www.turnermuseum.group.shef.ac.uk

www.glass-international.com

T

he first use of a greenhouse to control the environment for growing food is attributed to the emperor Tiberius and his staff in the first century AD. Apparently a physician recommended that he ate a cucumber a day as a cure for a particular ailment. Records show the efforts his servants made to produce such a crop throughout the year and one outcome was perhaps the first attempt at environmental control.

Not until the 13th century did the concept re-emerge. This was in response to the need to protect tender plants discovered in the tropics by explorers and amassed in botanical collections such as that of the Pope in the Vatican. Similarly during the 17th century comparable structures became popular in the Netherlands, UK and France, often with synonyms such as Pineries, for growing pineapples, Orangeries or Conservatories.

Meanwhile in Asia, particularly in Korea, greenhouses giving active control of internal conditions were also being investigated in the mid 15th century.

Different designs were studied because of the difficulty of maintaining a balanced and appropriate temperature and large structures were created such as the greenhouse at the Palace of Versailles measuring 150m long, 13m wide, 14m high. The first practical modern greenhouses were developed in the 1800s, coinciding with the mushrooming of technology during the UK’s Victorian era.

Initially temperature enhancement was a key consideration. A glasshouse has two roles in this respect. Firstly it transmits much of the sun’s radiation, which heats the contents. The greenhouse’s enclosed structure traps the hot air produced i.e. it reduces convection. Additionally while glass allows into the space the shorter wavelength infrared radiation from the sun, it blocks the re-radiated longer infrared wavelengths corresponding to the lower temperatures inside the structure.

An active system must also avoid

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British Glass

British Glass

Glass Futures project Chris Sorsby* discusses the development of British Glass’ new Glass Futures project, which has grown out of the success of The Glass Academy training and skills development initiative, and how 2015 promises many exciting opportunities for the glass industry.

G

lass Futures brings together a range of initiatives aimed at driving the industry forward and celebrating glass as a material in all its uses and applications. The focal point of this cluster of projects is the new Centre of Excellence based in Sheffield, UK

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Centre of Excellence In collaboration with several universities, including Sheffield, Leeds, Sheffield Hallam and Southampton, the UK glass manufacturing industry, technical partners, Sheffield City Region (SCR) and other supporters, British Glass has developed a business model for the Centre of Excellence, incorporating training and development, R&D, and prototyping.

A £5m SCR Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) grant has been approved and is currently in due diligence. There are ongoing discussions with regards to purchase of the land, while Siemens and other suppliers have offered support in the form of equipment and resources.

The new facility is a two-phase development that will see an initial £20m-£25m investment, ~25% supported by the SCR LEP. The facility will include three buildings designed to offer the global glass community support through each stage of the technology readiness level (TRL) process, from 1-4 in a new university centre, 4-7 in a building run by BG’s subsidiary company, Glass Technology Services (GTS) and 7-9 in a new production facility. r Building 1 – TRL 1-4 - University: The main research facilities, focusing on fundamental research and small scale melting. r Building 2 – TRL 4-7 – GTS: The focus will be on research, development and testing of new products in preparation for full-scale trials. GTS is particularly interested in finding new technology in niche applications/other industries, that can be developed to be applied in the mainstream glass industry.

This has already led to Innovate UK

projects and two patents being drafted. r Building 3 – TRL 7-9 – British Glass: BG will host a production facility, boasting the world’s first commercially accessible and multi-disciplinary glass melting facility in the form of a 30 tonne furnace, plus full-sized forming, inspection and packaging equipment.

The focus will be on live research and development and training.

Investment A key focus of the Centre of Excellence is around investment in innovation.

British Glass is committed to being at the forefront of the developments in glass to assist the whole supply chain to innovate and move forward, from research into potential next generation technology to projects that could be used within mainstream industry.

Utilising the technical expertise within British Glass and GTS, it is able to drive innovation projects in areas that could have potential benefits to the glass industry supply chain such as manufacturing efficiencies, product developments and new technologies.

We promote and facilitate collaboration within the glass industry supply chain but we also have strong links with universities, research facilities and other industries and look to constantly develop these and other partnerships.

As part of the work, British Glass is to form an ‘Innovation Group’ that will enable further collaborative projects to be developed. This forum will take the format of three or four events throughout the year, allowing the latest technological developments to be presented, along with increasing an understanding of the industry’s challenges and opportunities.

The aim is for the group to facilitate a technological push and market pull, resulting in projects that will benefit the glass industry and its supply chain.

Blazing a trail The

UK

Government

is

currently

reforming apprenticeships to improve the quality, simplify the system and put employers in the driving seat. The Trailblazer programme is vital to this, providing employers and industries the opportunity to lead the development of new apprenticeship standards. A core element to the success of the new facility is the development of these apprenticeship standards, which will underpin the training that will be delivered.

Trailblazer will develop a glassmaking apprenticeship with the flexibility to support several careers and sectors, including furnace control and glass melting, container manufacture and flat glass manufacture. The apprenticeship will incorporate a fundamental understanding of engineering principles, supported with key glass knowledge relevant to specific roles.

We are holding workshops with members to ensure that employer demand is at the heart of framework design and informing models of training and assessment. The ultimate aim is for the apprenticeship to gain professional body recognition to allow transferability, through working with the Society of Glass Technology and related bodies.

Roadmap Many of the projects under Glass Futures were born out of the strategic industry roadmap to 2050 that we are continuing to develop in collaboration with members and industry. It was identified that the promotion of glass as a material are of key importance to the future success of the industry.

The Roadmap informed the creation of Glass Futures and the various projects this encompasses, and the work British Glass is doing in this area will go a long way to securing the future of our industry. r

*Commercial Project Coordinator, British Glass, Sheffield, UK. www.britglass.org.uk

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HORN has the in-depth experience in glass melting technology needed to offer you solutions to optimize the ecological and economical performance of your furnace. ecofurbishing® – yet another example of HORN innovation: improving quality, increasing output and lifespan; helping you save money and energy and, best of all, protecting our planet. For more information about our industry-leading solutions please visit www.hornglass.com

I N N O VAT I O N E N G I N E E R E D I N G E R M A N Y

C ON TAIN ER GLAS S • COS METIC GL AS S • F I B R E GL AS S • F L AT GL AS S • F L O AT G L A S S L I GHTING • PHARM ACE UTICAL GLAS S • S O DI UM-S I L I C AT E GL AS S • TAB L E WA R E • T U B I N G

Glass personality profile

Stephan Meindl, Executive Chairman of Horn Glass Industries, speaks about recent developments in the glass industry and how Horn plans to react to them.

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he future prospects of the industry look good, as global demand for glass is set to increase. In 2013 approximately 177 million tonnes of glass were produced (source: Glass Global Consulting) and this is predicted to rise to 200 million tonnes by 2016, corresponding to a 4.5% annual increase in production.

In the container glass industry, sales of beverage bottles increased by about 4.4% in the first three quarters of 2014 (source: BV Glas), with the domestic market growing a bit more (4.4%) compared to sales abroad which increased by 4.2%.

Container glass packaging for food is currently facing a ‘trend reversal’, with values such as quality and pleasure coming to the fore and replacing the hunt for the lowest price.

This change of consumer attitude has brought about a major change for companies in the food sector: In the future, they will offer more premium quality products. The packaging is important here, and so it does not come as a surprise that companies are rediscovering glass. There is hardly any other packaging material that conveys the quality and the pleasure derived from its contents as easily and credibly as glass does.

So, as the demand for container glass is set to increase in the future, Horn Glass wants to consolidate its market share in glass melting furnaces in existing markets and break into new, developing markets.

The second main pillar of Horn is the float glass sector. The float glass industry is currently at a low level with few investments being made in new production facilities, so there will only be moderate growth in 2015.

Horn supplies turnkey float glass production plants and offers a range starting from batch charging through to utilities and up to packaging.

Moreover, customers may expect project management and architectural planning.

Horn’s customers in the float glass industry are usually ‘independent’ glass manufacturers, but Horn has also managed to make close contacts within established float glass corporate groups that are active internationally.

The future target is to cooperate more closely with the global players of the float glass industry.

The fact that Horn manufactures the melting furnaces, the tin bath and the automation inhouse will support these plans.

Stephan Meindl named Horn CEO Markets and competitive pressure Global markets fluctuate considerably, but in general Horn achieves 75% of its turnover abroad.

The EU and Asia are currently its key markets, while Latin America also plays an important role.

“We are also glad that the demand from the Middle East is increasing again,” stated Meindl.

However, there is strong competitive pressure in the newly industrialised countries and for a hightech supplier it can be difficult to compete. Horn Glass has two solutions for this problem: In-house manufacture and global locations.

Due to the high percentage of in-house planning and manufacture, Horn is in a position to adapt the heating system or the electric control of the glass melting furnaces, for example, and to keep its prices attractive. Moreover, materials and services can be purchased directly and locally through global locations in China, Malaysia, India and the Czech Republic.

Networking Horn intends to consolidate and expand its locations worldwide to be closer to its customers.

As well as this, more agencies will be set up in countries with a strong glass industry.

Horn is already represented in many countries and in Meindl’s view cooperating with other companies to offer production facilities and service to the glass industry is a model for the future.

Horn is represented in a strong partnership known as the Container Glass Alliance and can offer complete glass factories together with its partners Zippe, MSK and Bucher Emhart Glass.

Horn Glass Industries, Plößberg, Germany. www.hornglass.com

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53035 MONTERIGGIONI (SI) ITALY - Strada di Gabbricce, 6 Tel +39 0577 304730 ifv@fonderievaldelsane.com

www.fonderievaldelsane.com

How to rescue your furnace Stuart Hakes* outlines the weakest links of a furnace and suggests a number of ways to tackle a furnace repair.

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he melting of glass is a competitive business and considerable pressure is exerted on operating departments to maximise furnace life in order to avoid costly interruptions to the manufacturing process and to delay capital expenditure.

This places pressures on plant personnel, particularly where the general state of the furnace is reasonable, but a specific area of the furnace is known to be weak and in dire need of a repair.

For the purposes of this article I will ignore problems with the superstructure and concentrate only on the glass contact areas of the furnace.

The current state of technology is such that the only option to patch these specific areas on-the-run, is by either over-coating with additional refractory and/or additional cooling.

However, there are severe limitations in this approach, particularly with regard to the two most critical areas of the furnace, which are also the most prone to excessive wear.

These areas are of course the doghouse corner block on end-fired furnaces and the throat. Both of these areas are exceptionally difficult to reach and to effectively repair.

In the past, the throat was easily the weakest part of the furnace but with improved refractories and design, this area has now become the second weakest link after the doghouse corner.

Downstream doghouse corner The downstream doghouse corner is a difficult area as it is unable to be adequately braced by the furnace steel in that it is a negative angle, in other words, any bracing in this area pushes the block into the furnace away from its adjoining blocks.

Some companies have overcome this weakness by installing expanding bolts

A water cooled bubbler tube

into the refractory in order to pull it back tight against the two adjacent walls.

This approach improves the tightness of the vertical joints that can open up during warm up, and thus minimise the rate of vertical wear on these joints.

Nevertheless, it does very little to minimise the wear on this block due to the action of the raw materials being dragged across the internal refractory surface together with the evolution of products of melting such as the evolution of gasses, CO2, SOx, NOx and oxygen.

This environment, together with the ever-changing thermal conditions, places stress on the block resulting in higher rates of wear.

The main supporting steelwork in this area also renders it difficult to over-coat and also often prevents the adequate alignment of any cooling wind.

This area therefore becomes problematic in terms of trying to cajole additional life from the furnace.

Similarly, the throat which has traditionally been the weakest point is still a major problem area. As stated previously, advances primarily in refractories, and to some extent in design and wind cooling, has improved this area to a degree. Nevertheless, the throat is more critical in terms of potential glass leaks as it is difficult to access it in the event of a glass leak and consequently, repair.

At this point, perhaps it is worth deviating to discuss briefly how glass leaks should be tackled. With current, not unreasonable emphasis on Health & Safety, personnel are not encouraged to get too near a glass leak, unless specifically trained. With increased automation of the furnace, personnel are not available.

At one time many plants had on-site refractory labourers but these have all but disappeared and with them the

knowledge and experience to contain glass escapes.

Right requirement As I travel the world it is clear that all too often the right equipment is not available or located in suitable areas around the furnace. As many plant operatives perhaps only see one or two furnace rebuilds during their career, the expertise in dealing with glass leaks has by and large been lost.

However, the author with 50 years experience has many memories of fighting glass leaks and discovered the most effective techniques.

There is a tendency today to stand well back from the leak and direct jets of water at the glass flowing out, presumably with the objective to generally make safe the surrounding areas and minimise any consequential fires.

This is misguided as these water jets invariably cause loss of essential equipment such as cooling fans and this can rapidly make the situation worse.

It will have almost zero effect on stopping the leak. In the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experience the only way to stop any glass leak is to get water to freeze the glass in the point of the leak itself. In other words, in order to tackle a glass leak, water lances of sufficient length to stand back safely but nevertheless find Continued>>

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Furnaces

the source of the leak and freeze the glass at source are required.

Any glass that leaks from a joint or crack is propelled by the head pressure of the glass in the furnace, which means that freezing the glass in-situ is difficult.

Very often, as glass is frozen in one place, hot glass will run behind this frozen glass and appear to leak from another source. It is rare for this to happen, even in the days when refractories were considerably lower quality and furnace lives were typically only four years.

The only way to stop a glass leak, wherever it is, is to put the lance in the hole and freeze the glass and chip away the frozen glass carefully as you go in order to locate the precise point of leakage.

This is not without some spitting of the glass in the process, and therefore the lances need to be sufficiently long and the correct protective clothing available.

In my trips around the world I have very rarely seen this equipment located close to a furnace.

There is, however, another solution to avoid glass leaks in critical areas. This involves freezing the glass from the inside of the furnace before it leaks.

Cooling tubes FIC (UK) Limited has developed cooling tubes which can be inserted through holes drilled in the floor to freeze the glass in any area of the furnace bath to prevent glass leaking through cracked blocks or high wear.

The technology of these water-cooled tubes is based upon the technology used in float furnaces where bubblers are inserted deep into the glass - typically around 900mm - and bubbling occurs close to the surface.

These bubbler tubes are obviously water-cooled and are required to operate continuously in the melt during operation. However, during tint changes it is often necessary to pull the bubblers down to the floor and bubble more vigorously to speed up the change of colour. They are then pushed back to their original position for normal operation.

This places considerable stress on the bubbler tubes. FIC has developed bubblers which have no weld inside the glass melt, making them more reliable and giving for long service life.

Providing a continuous flow of water is available, these bubbler tubes will last the full campaign of the furnace, typically 15 to 20 years. FIC has adapted these bubblers by removing the inner air pipe making a blind bubbler and can hot drill the furnace to install these tubes close to the original inside-face of the refractory and freeze the glass. Frozen glass is a perfect refractory in a glass furnace in that it will never wear.

Freezing the glass in close proximity to the sidewall block, particularly in the area of the doghouse described earlier, is an effective way to ensure that this damaged refractory block is rendered safe. These coolers can also be used in any area of the furnace bath and especially

where horizontal electrodes have caused increased wear on the sidewall electrode block, either through thermal cracking or through an undetected electrode breakage or running the electrodes at incorrect immersions due to failure to advance worn electrodes promptly.

FIC (UK) Limited has also proposed installing these coolers in the side of the throat to freeze the glass going across the upper surface of the throat covers.

FIC has two sizes of coolers, 40mm and 25mm and as stated previously, hot drilling to insert these is easily achieved.

However, the company also believes that rather than using these coolers as a rescue operation they should be inserted from new. If the doghouse corner block was drilled from below and the watercooled tube inserted in the block, this would help to fix it in position and stop it moving during the warm up and would also act as an internal cooler.

This would be more effective than external cooling. Similarly, these coolers could be used in the throat to reduce wear. FIC has designs to cover this critical area. The hot installation of these coolers as a rescue operation is infinitely quicker and cheaper than a cold repair and can give much needed additional furnace life, thereby obviating the necessity for interruptions to production and also to capital expenditure.

*CEO, FIC (UK) Limited, Penzance, UK www.fic-uk.com

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FIC workers carrying out repairs on a furnace.

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Supplier profile: FIC (UK) Limited

FIC reaps benefits of acquisition x The FIC premises in Penzance, UK.

It has been a year since Glass Service of the Czech Republic acquired FIC (UK) Limited. Greg Morris spoke to Stuart Hakes, FIC’s Chief Executive, to discover more about FIC and how the two companies are working together.

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FIC

is a specialist supplier of all-electric furnaces and forehearths, electrical boosting systems and associated equipment for the glass conditioning process.

It was established in Penzance, UK, 35 years ago by an ex-Pilkington employee, Don Charlesworth, and now employs 15 full time staff and 10 part time staff. The glass manufacturing processes it serves includes TFT, LCD, float, fibre, holloware and borosilicate glasses. According to Stuart Hakes, the company’s strongest geographical market is China where it is a leader in the float and TFT markets.

Despite strong competition from domestic businesses, FIC’s breadth of knowledge and experience has meant it has stayed ahead of competitors.

FIC was formerly owned by the Belgian company CNUD, but was taken over by the Czech Republic’s Glass Service in January 2014.

Glass Service is based in Vsetin, Czech Republic and provides advanced solutions in the fields of glass melting, furnace modelling, furnace control and operation, as well as troubleshooting on furnace designs.

Mr Hakes said the life since the acquisition had been “fantastic”.

“There were huge synergies between the two groups with several complementary segments, particularly around the furnace. It’s been good that we were able to organise the acquisition.”

The two companies had worked together before so were aware of each others capabilities. The main benefit for FIC, said Mr Hakes, was the inhouse acquisition and implementation of Glass Service’s Computational Fluid Dynamics modelling (CFD), of which Glass Service have more than 35 licenses around the world, enabling companies to independently evaluate their own ideas on furnace design and operation.

“We now have a powerful tool and it gives our customers more assurance. We are a bigger group now with a wealth of experience that complements our own.

It gives our customers more confidence that what they are buying is the best available.”

For Glass Service, the acquisition gives it access to FIC’s valuable technology and experience, and an opening into the float glass sector.

Standalone businesses Both companies are keen to make clear that both are still standalone businesses, and there is a clear demarcation to ensure customer confidentiality does not leak across companies. Both companies were mindful of conflicts of interest, particularly between Glass Service and technology suppliers who are competitive to FIC, and both companies have agreed not to compromise existing business relationships.

It means FIC has access to Glass Service know how, such as its modelling programmes on a stand-alone basis, but has no access to technology developed on behalf of other groups.

Meetings The past year has seen a flurry of meetings between the two companies, both in Penzance and in Glass Service’s headquarters. Both are keen to explore improvements to electric melting and conditioning practices. They will work together on joint R&D projects using FICs experience in the development of electro-heat technology and Glass Continued>>

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Supplier profile: FIC (UK) Limited

Service’s modelling and analysis of fuel-fired glass melting processes.

There are currently no plans to develop into new areas, but rather to strengthen their own core areas.

Mr Hakes said: “We are already working together on projects.

Through Glass Service we were able to tap into a problem in South America and offer a technology solution, which has now been ordered.”

He added: “With Glass Service we are able to better deliver a complete service to electric furnace customers.

“The aim now is to keep on improving what we do and anticipate our customers’ needs before the customers realise what their needs are.”

Environment Mr Hakes is keen to promote electric furnaces as an environmentally friendly alternative to furnaces that are fired by fossil fuels. By using electricity instead of traditional fossil fuels, the amount of NOx in the glassmaking process is reduced.

“We’ve led the industry at electricity substitution and therefore reduced fossil fuels. Electricity may be principally derived from fossil fuel but it is easier to capture carbon at a large source like a power station rather than within small glass plants. A number of recent seminars in Europe have endorsed that our industry will have to go all-electric in the future.”

It is these environmentally friendly benefits that will help ensure that glass remains an essential part of life, said Mr Hakes.

“Glass is an essential part of life today and will remain so.

Food and drinks containers packaged in glass are the preferred option because they are environmentally friendly, so there are continued opportunities there. Glass fibres and composites could be the technology of the future as we run out of other materials. That’s a big opportunity. “There are glasses that are highly specialised that are essential for blood dialysis. Glass touches and impinges on our lives and in places where people don’t have an understanding or knowledge. People see the beer or the jam inside the bottle but don’t see the package. It is the same as smartphones or tablets – there are glass layers but people don’t see it.”

For FIC, the aim for the future is to remain competitive and to stay as a niche supplier and not to become a greenfield site turnkey supplier. r

FIC, Penzance, UK email: general @fic-uk.com www.fic-uk.com Glass Service, Vsetin, Czech Republic www.gsl.cz Glass International April 2015

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Melting

Impact of gas on glass melting A German research project investigated the effects of fluctuating gas quality on glass melting furnaces. Jörg Leicher, Anne Giese, Klaus Görner*, Matthias Werschy, Steffen Franke, Hartmut Krause** and Holger Dörr*** report.

T

www.glass-international.com

46,8

43,2

50,4

54

57,6 50,4

Danemark Erdgas-L 46,8

Nordsee Erdgas-H Biogas + LPG

12

43,2

relative Dichte d=0,75

Holland Erdgas-L

11

39,6 Russ Erdgas-H

Weser/Ems Erdgas-L

10

36

Biogas relative Dichte d=0,55

32,4

9

Gross calorific value [kWh/m3] @ 25°C/0°C

Gross calorific value [kWh/m3] @ 25°C/0°C

13,1 13

8,4 28,8

 Fig 1. Permissible gas quality ranges in Germany [11].

7 10

12

11

13

13,6

14

15,7

15

25,2 16

Wobbe Index Ws,n [MJ/m3] @ 25°C/0°C

Natural gas composition (over 3.5 months) Ethan

7

Kohlendioxid

Propan

Russian H-Gas: WI* ~53.1MJ/m ~

3

Stickstoff

Methan

Min

Max

100

North Sea H-Gas: WI* ~~ 52.9MJ/m

3

6

98

97,77

5

96

4

94

3

92

2

90

1

88

0

86 1440

720

2040

2520

Concentration of other gases [mole-%]

Natural gas is an important source of energy for many industries. In 2011, about one third of Europe’s gas consumption was due to various industrial applications (excluding power generation)[1]. With regards to the generation of process heat in manufacturing processes, natural gas is the most important source of energy in Germany[2] and other developed countries. The predominance of natural gas for thermal processing applications in Europe is due to a number of factors: Pollutant emissions are low compared to other fossil fuels and the European gas infrastructure is well-developed, offering availability and security of supply.

One crucial aspect is the good controllability of gas burners: In many

39,6

36 14

* @25°C/0°C

Natural gas

Wobbe Index Ws,n [MJ/m3] @ 25°C/0°C

Concentration of other gases [mole-%]

he markets for natural gas in Europe are in transition. Some traditional domestic sources, e.g. the L-Gas fields in the Netherlands, are in decline, while imports from sources outside Europe will play a larger role for Europe’s gas supply in the future.

The continued integration of gases from sustainable sources into the gas infrastructure as well as political developments, such as the intent of the European Union to harmonise European gas quality standards accompanying the liberalisation of the gas markets, will also lead to profound changes in the European gas market.

While this evolution offers benefits, such as stable gas prices, increased flexibility and security of supply as well as a reduced CO2 footprint, it also means that gas consumers will be confronted with more fluctuations of gas quality at any given location on the grid. For some, especially in regions that have traditionally enjoyed constant gas quality, this will be a new experience.

In the course of a German research project, the effects of fluctuating gas qualities on sensitive industrial combustion processes, e.g. in glass melting furnaces, were investigated.

measurements

z Fig 2. Temporal evolution of the composition of natural gas supplied to a thermal processing plant. manufacturing processes, tight control of furnace temperatures and atmospheres is essential for high product quality, fuel efficiency and low pollutant emissions.

Even small changes of the conditions inside a furnace can have a negative impact on the performance of the process. In ceramics manufacturing, for

example, a small deviation in the furnace temperature can lead to a discolouration of the product or a reduction in the quality of the glazing[3].

The European markets for natural gas are in a state of transition for various Continued>>

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H-Gas Ref– GWI

Q=1096kW 5000

11000

H-Gas 3 – GWI

Q=1455kW ∆=32.6% 17000 23000

H-Gas 1– GWI

29000

Q=741kW ∆=-32.4%] 35000 41000

H-Gas Ref– GWI

H-Gas 3 – GWI

Q=1096kW

45000

Q=1102kW ∆=0.6%

H-Gas 1– GWI

Q=1076kW ∆= -1.8%

q [W/m2]

z Fig 3. Heat flux distribution into the glass melt for the first scenario (constant

z Fig 4. Heat flux distribution into the glass melt for the third scenario (con-

air ratios).

stant burner loads and air ratios).

Gas quality Natural gas quality is usually not expressed in terms of chemical composition, as it would hardly be feasible to maintain constant gas compositions in a complex gas grid. Instead, a small number of characteristic fuel gas properties are used to define gas quality. In Germany, for example, the Code of Practice DVGW G 260[11], issued by the DVGW German association regulates natural gas quality and uses three characteristic fuel gas properties: The relative density (the ratio of the standard densities of the natural

gas and air); the gross calorific value HS; and the Wobbe Index WS as a fuel interchangeability parameter.

All values are referenced to 25°C/0°C for energy and volume respectively. While the applicability of the Wobbe Index for many industrial firing systems is not undisputed[12], it remains one of the most important gas quality parameters in the context of grid control and residential appliances.

Fig. 1 shows the ranges of permissible gas qualities in Germany as well as gas qualities of some distributed gases.

It is evident that these ranges are large.

However, while there have always been differences in gas qualities at different locations, the quality of distributed gas at a given location remained constant in the past, an advantage for the operation of sensitive industrial combustion processes where tight control over furnace conditions is crucial for product quality, fuel efficiency and pollutant emissions.

Industrial burners are usually adjusted without knowing the exact composition of the gas currently used.

Unnanounced changes However, end users of natural gas are increasingly confronted with unannounced rapid changes of gas quality and compositions.

This is of particular concern for many industrial applications. Fig. 2 shows a gas chromatograph measurement of the chemical composition of natural gas supplied to a thermal processing plant near Leipzig, Germany. The measurements show changes of local gas compositions. The methane content, for example, dropped from almost 98 vol.-% to less than 90 vol.-%, while the concentrations of higher hydrocarbons rose accordingly. Also, steep gradients indicate that the changes occurred rapidly.

While the supplied gas always complied with the limits defined by DVGW G 260, the Leipzig plant experienced problems with product quality, pollutant emissions and overall efficiency due to sudden and unexpected changes of the fuel gas composition.

A recent poll carried out by the “Hüttentechnische Vereinigung der Deutschen Glasindustrie” (HVG) in Germany showed that about 75% of the participants of the poll (which corresponds to roughly 90% of Germany’s glass manufacturing capacity) had already experienced production problems due to gas quality changes [13]. Problems ranged from reduced product quality and efficiency to issues with process stability and pollutant emissions.

Effects In the course of a research project funded

by DVGW[14], the effects of changing gas qualities on different industrial combustion processes were investigated.

In one case study, the effects of fluctuating gas qualities on a regenerative glass melting furnace were analysed, using CFD simulations. Since the glass melting process is sensitive to changes in furnace conditions, it can serve as an excellent example to look into the effects of changing gas qualities on industrial combustion processes in more detail.

The furnace was calibrated for optimum performance (burner load 4MW, air ratio 1.05, air pre-heat temperature 1300°C) using a reference gas (called H-Gas Ref._ GWI) whose composition corresponds to the gas available at GWI’s facilities at the time of the simulations. In addition to the reference gas, two additional gases were defined at the extremes of DVGW G 260’s H-Gas range.

Continued>>

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reasons. Traditional sources such as Dutch L-Gas are disappearing[4] while new sources will play a bigger role (e. g. biogas, LNG[5] or even hydrogen[6],[7] from powerto-gas applications) in the future. Similar to the electricity market, the European markets for natural gas have undergone a liberalisation process. Integrated gas companies were ‘unbundled’, leading to increased competition on the markets.

Finally, the so-called harmonisation of H-Gas, will also have an impact on gas use, especially in the industrial sector.

The European Commission intends to introduce a common European gas quality regulation[8],[9] to supersede national regulations. As many of these national regulations are, to a certain extent, incompatible to one another[10], they are considered to be a trade obstacle by the European Commission, interfering with the internal European market.

This evolution of the European markets for natural gas brings a number of benefits, such as stable prices, an increased security of supply due to diversification of sources and a better integration of regenerative energy sources into the gas infrastructure.

One consequence will be that increased fluctuations of local gas both in amplitude and frequency in years to come.

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H-Gas 1_GWI has a low gross calorific value, while the HS of H-Gas 3_GWI is rather high. Both are, however, within the permissible H-Gas range.

In various scenarios, the responses of the furnace to a sudden switch from the reference gas to either H-Gas 1_GWI or H-Gas 3_GWI were simulated.

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Scenarios In the first scenario, it was assumed that an oxygen sensor was used to constantly monitor the global stoichiometry of the system. The volume flow of air is then adjusted to maintain a constant air ratio while the volume flow of the fuel gas, however, remains constant. This is a common approach to control many industrial furnaces. The simulations show, however, the limited success of such a control strategy to minimise changes caused by changing fuels.

Due to the changed densities and calorific values of the various test gases, the energy input into the furnace changes quite drastically, leading to a shift in the overall energy balance of the system.

Flow fields and temperature distributions change, as do the heat fluxes into the glass melt. The latter is of particular importance as it will have an impact on glass quality in a real glass melting furnace, increasing the rejection rate of the production process. Fig. 3 shows the total heat flux distributions into the melt for this scenario.

In a second scenario, it was assumed that a change in gas quality occurs and the furnace control system does not intervene. This means that the volume flows of both air and fuel remain constant.

The consequence in this scenario is that the global stoichiometry of the system changes because the minimum air requirements of a fuel are dependent on its chemical composition.

When switching to higher calorific fuel, the combustion in the furnace becomes sub-stoichiometric ((λ=0.93 in this case), causing CO formation. This is a worstcase scenario.

The consequences of a change towards a fuel with a reduced calorific value are relatively benign: in addition to the reduced glass quality due to the reduced heat flux into the melt, the combustion process is also operated in an inefficient manner, leading to increased fuel consumption due to an increased air ratio (λ = 1.21).

The third investigated scenario is a best-case scenario. It is assumed that

sophisticated measurement equipment, for example a gas chromatograph, constantly monitors the fuel gas composition. The volume flows of both fuel and air are then adjusted accordingly to maintain constant burner loads and air ratios. The simulations show that in this manner, the effects of changing fuel gas compositions on the process can be minimised (Fig 4).

Despite a difference in the net calorific values of about 14% (based on the reference gas), the change in the total heat flux into the glass melt is at less than 2%. While there are still some differences in the temperature distributions and NOX emissions of the furnace simulations (confirmed by test rig experiments[15]) in this scenario, the overall impact of a drastic gas quality change on the production process was largely mitigated. This comes at a price, as the measurement and control equipment to implement such a strategy in an industrial furnace is expensive.

In addition to the glass melting furnace, various other industrial combustion processes were investigated both experimentally and numerically within the research project. It could be shown that while there are some processes that are sufficiently robust to handle drastic gas quality changes, many cannot.

[5] and

Chrz, V., Seifert, M., “LNG - Markets, Standards Perspectives”,

EDGaR-DVGW

Second

Joint

Conference on Gas Innovation and Sustainability, Brussels, Belgium, 2013.

[6]

Vogel,

A.,

Adelt,

“Herausforderungen

und

M.,

Zschocke,

A.,

Innovationen

der

Energiespeicherung - Fokus Power to Gas”, Gaswärme International, no. 6, pp. 47–54, 2012.

[7]

Krause, H., Müller-Syring, G., Henel, H.,

“Power-to-Gas - concept for energy storage in gas infrastructure”, DVGW-EDGaR First Joint Conference, Arnhem, The Netherlands, 2013.

[8]

“Mandate to CEN for Standardisation in

the field of gas qualities,” European Commission - Directorate-General for Energy and Transport, , M/400 EN, Brussels, Belgium, 2007.

[9]

“Draft prEN 16726 Gas Infrastructure - Quality

of gas - Group H,” Comité Européen de Normalisation, Brussels, Belgium, 2014.

[10]

Drasdo, P., Karasz, M., Pustisek, A., “Dis-

harmony in European Natural Gas Market(s) Discussion of Standards and Definitions”, Zeitschrift für Energiewirtschaft, no. 37, pp. 143–156, 2013.

[11]

“Technische Regel - Arbeitsblatt DVGW G260

(A), ‘Gasbeschaffenheit’”, Bonn, Germany.

[12]

Fleischmann,

B.,

“Einfluss

Gasbeschaffenheitsänderungen

auf

von den

Glasherstellungsprozess - Teil 2: Ist eine Regelung mit dem Wobbe-Index möglich?”, Mitteilung Nr. 2161, Hüttentechnische Vereinigung der Deutschen Glasindustrie e.V., Offenbach, Germany, 2014.

[13]

Fleischmann,

B.,

“Ergebnis

einer

HVG-

Umfrage zu Erfahrungen der Glasindustrie mit Gasbeschaffenheitsschwankungen im Erdgasnetz”,

Conclusion

Mitteilung Nr. 2155, Hüttentechnische Vereinigung

The changes to the European gas markets will bring benefits to the end consumer, but they also mean that relatively constant gas quality and hence rather constant combustion characteristics can no longer be taken for granted.

This has consequences for many gasfired industrial applications, not just for the glass industry. Operators of industrial furnaces need to be aware of the developments on the gas markets and look into the susceptibility of their plants.

der

Deutschen

Glasindustrie

e.V.,

Offenbach,

Germany, 2011.

[14]

Krause, H., Werschy, M., Franke, S., Giese,

A., Benthin, J., Dörr, H., “DVGW-Forschungsauftrag: Gasbeschaffenheit Industrie - Untersuchungen der Auswirkungen von Gasbeschaffenheitsänderungen auf industrielle und gewerbliche Anwendungen”, Final Report DVGW Forschungsprojekt G 1/06/10, 2014.

[15]

Leicher, J., Giese, A., Werschy, M., Dörr, H.,

“Impact of Gas Quality Variations on Combustion Processes

in

Thermal

Processing

Applications”,

27th International Conference on Efficiency, Turku,

References

Finland, 2014.

[1]

“EUROGAS Statistical Report 2012”.

[2]

Rohde,

[16]

Slim, B.K., Darmeveil, H.D., Gersen, S.,

von

Levinsky, H.B., “The combustion behaviour of forced-

Anwendungsbilanzen für die Jahre 2009 und 2010

draught industrial burners when fired within the

für das verarbeitende Gewerbe”, Fraunhofer-Institut

EASEE-gas range of Wobbe Index”, Journal of Natural

für System-

Gas Science and Engineering, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 642–

C.,

“Erstellung

und Innovationsforschung, Karlsruhe,

645, 2011.

Germany, 2011.

[3] -

Giese, A., “Gasbeschaffenheits-schwankungen Mögliche

Auswirkungen

auf

industrielle

Anwendungen”, Gaswärme International, no. 2, pp.

70–75, 2013.

[4]

“Netzentwicklungsplan

deutschen

Gas

Fernleitungsnetzbetreiber”,

Berlin, Germany, 2014.

2013

der

FNB

Gas,

* Gas- und Wärme-Institut Essen e.V. (GWI) Germany www.gwi-essen.de **DBI Gas- und Umwelttechnik, Leipzig, Germany ***DVGW-Forschungsstelle am Engler-Bunte-Institut, Karlsruhe (EBI), Germany

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www.xparvision.com

Bright ideas. Better glass.

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Batch

A new chapter of batch charging Egbert Wenninger* discusses the evolution of batch charging and how a third generation of batch equipment is improving glass quality.

T

he Sorg Group comprises Nikolaus Sorg, EME Maschinenfabrik Clasen and Sorg Keramik Services (SKS).

It supplies all necessary equipment and technologies for the complete melting process, beginning with the delivery of the raw materials, through to the glass melting process and finally the transfer of the conditioned glass to the forming process.

Nikolaus Sorg has 140 years of history in glass melting and conditioning in the glass world. EME was founded in 1920, joined the Sorg Group in 1987, and is a supplier of batch preparation plants, cullet handling equipment and batch charging technology. The manner in which the batch is introduced to the melting furnace has a huge impact on both the melting behaviour and the final glass quality. Nikolaus Sorg and EME therefore house this expertise under one roof.

www.glass-international.com

A look back Glass is a fascinating material and has a history stretching back a few thousand years. Industrialised glass production began more or less in the early 20th century when Michael J. Owens developed a blowing process for bottle forming and Emile Fourcault introduced a drawing process to produce flat glass.

From there the glass industry rapidly developed. Furnaces were larger and more efficient, while the forming processes and automation improved.

Another milestone for the production of flat glass was the float process invented

by Sir Alastair Pilkington and Kenneth Bickerstaff in the late 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, allowing a higher output of flat glass with a much better optical quality. The history of automated batch charging technologies is almost as old as industrialised glass production.

zFig 1. Batch Charger System 2001.

It was fairly obvious that the focus of the innovations was not initially on the batch preparation and batch chargers, but on the melting technology, forming processes and all other downstream production processes such as quality inspection and automation. Batch charging technology was in most cases just a chute, which was feeding a roughly-controlled amount of batch into a furnace extension, the so-called doghouse. Alternatively it was loaded at the back of the furnace over the full width in case of a flat glass production line. Over decades - even until today - it was accepted that this loading point and the doghouses were open to the batch charger side. At a later stage the batch flow was improved by means of vibratory chutes and pusher systems were also introduced to batch chargers in some cases. Such pushers would oscillate back and forth inside the doghouse, pushing the batch into the combustion area of the furnace. In the course of building furnaces for specific glass types, batch

chargers with transport screws instead of a chute transport were also installed and have become a proven technology in many glass production lines.

Milestone Improvements in the glass industry slowed after the turn of this century, resulting in peripheral processes, such as batch charging, moving to the top of the list within R&D departments. It resulted in batch charging technology receiving more attention.

Research programmes began to focus on energy losses around the batch chargers and on dust pollution when transporting batch from the furnace silo into the doghouse. The answer was to seal the doghouse towards the batchcharging machine.

At that time Sorg and EME were aware of the potential in these areas. In 2001, the two companies supplied a batch charger with a completely sealed doghouse in Continued>>

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zFig 2. EME-NEND 1st generation.

zFig 3.Perfect distribution of batch piles.

zFig 4. EME-NEND-V 3rd generation.

Warmensteinach, Germany (Fig 1). It comprised a vibratory tube for the batch transport, a heat protection shield that sealed the doghouse and a pusher on a linear axis with a rotary movement of the paddle. So the ‘true world premier’ of such a system happened in 2001 and not in 2014 as claimed recently. In total, Sorg and EME have installed four of these systems, mainly on furnaces with a smaller melting capacity. All of these were successful and some of them are still in operation today (Fig 2).

In the following years Sorg and EME’s R&D efforts were on energy efficiency and heat recovery systems. Since 2008 the company’s focus has been on direct heat transfer from the waste gases into the raw materials. The result was the development of a batch preheating system. One of the side effects was that dry batch was introduced to the furnace, which intensified the dusting issue in the furnace. This resulted in the birth of the Sorg Increased Radiation Doghouse (IRD). The special design of the doghouse allowed the furnace’s radiation heat to glaze the batch while it is still in the doghouse area. This sintering is necessary to reduce batch carryover to a level at or below what occurs with unheated batch materials.

The requirements of a batch charging system for such an application were different to the requirements of conventional doghouses and normal batch. The first difference was the material flow characteristics of preheated batch. It is much more challenging to accurately control the material flow of preheated batch than with humid batch at a normal temperature level. The second difference was that the batch charger is exposed to a higher temperature in an IRD doghouse compared to a standard solution.

NEND batch chargers family. Based on the already-tested system with a vibratory tube and a pusher system Sorg and EME developed the EME-NEND charging system which means ‘No Emission No Dust’. All existing batch transport technologies were considered: Vibratory chute, vibratory tubes and screw feeding systems. In the end, the screw feeder was the transport system of choice to control the batch material flow and avoid material blockages. Batch with a high moisture content in particular tends to build up, but this effect is eliminated with the screw transport.

The optimum melting behaviour was achieved by using two screws feeding two independent streams of batch into the furnace. The volume of batch can be controlled independently for each screw.

The pusher then separates individual piles and pushes them towards the combustion area. The direction of the batch flow can be influenced by different screw speeds and the resulting individual amount of batch loaded by each screw.

Sorg and EME were granted a patent for the machine in 2012. Over the course of time it was necessary to develop a machine with three screws for even larger furnaces. Here, the small individual piles of batch completely surrounded by molten glass guaranteed the best possible melting behaviour. With the speed of the screws the distribution of the batch in the furnace could be controlled and an extremely even distribution achieved without oscillation of the charger (Fig 3).

The functionality, the pusher lifetime and the lifetime of the screws were improved over several rounds of development, resulting in the introduction of the second generation of the EME-NEND system.

Concurrently for smaller furnaces a charger with a single screw was developed. Since the introduction of the EME-NEND family of chargers, more

than 50 systems have been installed around the world. The perfect batch piles and their distribution in the furnace have been proven as critical factors for producing glass of the optimum quality and a better melting behaviour of the batch.

In 2014 Sorg and EME introduced the third generation of the EME-NEND family (Fig 4). The key design aspect of the system is its modular concept. The basis for the design was the machine of 2001, which was up-scaled and reengineered. To complete the range of transport systems in the EME-NEND system, a vibratory tube is used for the batch transport along with a pusher on a linear axis with a movable paddle. Two machines can be combined to achieve a fully or partially redundant system. Each machine has its own vibratory tube and pusher system. The pusher systems can be used independently, which allows more flexibility for the batch charging.

A modular system allows continuous charging of batch with only one machine, while the second machine can be retracted and maintenance can be done in a safe manner. In cases where each machine has enough capacity to feed the entire furnace pull a fully redundant system is created.

In some applications this opens up the possibility of having a furnace with just one doghouse and a fully redundant charging system. Glass producers can now save the costs of investing in a doghouse with all its steelwork and refractories, a batch charger and all related batch transport systems. Three generations of EME-NEND chargers offers a variety of charging solutions for all applications in batch charging technology on sealed doghouses. r

No emission no dust This was the beginning of the EME-

Managing Director, EME Maschinenfabrik, Erkelenz, Germany www.eme.de

www.glass-international.com

Batch

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FIC ads 2014-3

23/4/14

16:39

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, Tomorrow s Technology Today

The Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading glass companies come to FIC with their Electric Boost/Heating projects E-Glass

Installations up to 3,500kW in oxyfired furnaces for extra tonnage and improving glass quality to eliminate strand breakages.

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Various installations in flint and coloured glasses, up to 2,500kW for increased output and quality.

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Boosting installations from single zone 1,000kW designs to 3 zone 6,000kW installations, for increasing clear output, maintaining output on tinted glass, energy substitution and reducing emissions. Multiple bubbler installations.

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Numerous installations of up to 1000kW installed power for TFT/LCD glasses using tin oxide electrode blocks to achieve exceptional glass quality.

Electric Furnaces Developing new furnace designs for most glass types, including opal. Complete technical back-up for melting quality improvement from raw materials though to forehearth, including all operational problems.

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, The World s Number One in Furnace Technology

Glass recycling

Ardagh gears up for ‘pure cullet’ UK recycling success Ardagh confirmed its status at the heart of the £890 million UK glass packaging industry with the signing of a 15-year agreement with West Yorkshire, UKbased Reuse to increase glass recycling. Ardagh Glass’s Group Head of Sustainability and Environment, Steffen Seehausen, will talk at the Glassman Europe conference in Lyon, France on May 7.

Investment The partnership’s first action is a £5 million investment in sorting and separation technology.

The new technology comprises a fourstage process, starting with the removal of medium sized organic and loose ferrous metals, followed by a drying section to remove dust and smaller materials, and thirdly the removal of residual metallic, leaded glass, and materials that burn at much higher temperatures than container glass, such as Pyrex.

The final and most critical stage subjects the remaining material to a thorough cleaning before it is separated by colour using advanced cleaning, purification and optical sorting techniques.

This new technology enables much better material recovery of glass by colour from the waste stream, for example glass particles as small as 4mm can now be successfully separated by colour, as opposed to only 10mm with the previous technology.

‘Pure cullet’ The resulting ‘pure’ cullet is then supplied to Ardagh as the highest quality recycled glass for use in its furnaces to make new bottles and jars. This breakthrough has helped Ardagh to increase the recycled content of the glass bottles and jars that it produces by 12%.

Sharon Crayton, Head of Marketing at Ardagh Glass, Europe, explained: “We have been producing green bottles that contain more than 90% of recycled glass for many years, but high recycling levels for clear (flint) glass have previously posed a challenge due to difficulties in colour separating clear glass back to a pure enough colour at the required quality specification.

“This new technology has put us at the

forefront of UK recycling, helping us to increase the recycled content for clear (flint) bottles and jars. For example, our Doncaster plant which is focused solely on the production of clear (flint) glass, achieved an average recycled content level of over 50% in the first quarter of 2014 against an average recycling rate of 32% in the same quarter of 2013.”

The new Reuse glass sorting and separation facilities have a total capacity for up to 250,000 tonnes of waste glass – approximately 13% of the UK’s steam of waste glass. Most of the glass supplied to these units is collected in the north of England, maximising the local nature of glass recycling and minimising Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

A

rdagh, which has three glass manufacturing plants in Yorkshire, UK (at Knottingley, Doncaster and Barnsley), is partnering with Reuse to increase the volume of cullet.

Reuse is a division of the privately owned Australian recycling and waste management company United Resource Management (URM), which also has three plants in Yorkshire.

 Ardagh Group’s glass plant in Knottingley, West Yorkshire, UK.

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Glass recycling

the carbon footprint of modern glass packaging.

Sharon Crayton added: “Glass packaging is already a successful environmental story as bottles can be recycled over and over again, without limit and without losing any of its quality as the most natural and healthy packaging medium.

“The partnership enables us to make even more use of the glass that is recycled in homes and businesses throughout Yorkshire and the north of England, helping us to provide customers with products that meet the highest recycling levels.”

Problem solving Mark Wilson from Reuse said: “With recent changes over the past few years in the way waste glass is collected, moving away from bottle banks to commingled household (kerbside) collections, the main challenge we faced was to find better ways of separating the glass from other recyclables, and then re-processing it into quality colour separated cullet.

“This latest investment, the first in an ongoing programme, gives us the technology to produce more finished cullet of the highest standard to meet the growing requirements of Ardagh.”

Wilson added: “However, it remains

 Jamie Brown (left), Head of Production at Reuse with Sharon Crayton, Head of Marketing at Ardagh Glass, Europe.

easier and effective to recycle glass back into glass bottles and jars when glass is collected separately from other packaging materials. We therefore urge councils to consider this when renewing their waste management contracts and to specify that recycled glass goes back into making new glass packaging rather than

less sustainable uses such as aggregates.

“We are happy to share our knowledge and experience to support the process and help increasing glass recycling rates even further.” 

Ardagh Glass, Knottingley, UK. www.ardaghgroup.com/glass

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AGRINTL.COM • +1.724.482.2163 SALES@AGRINTL.COM ardagh recycling.indd 2

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Handling

Glass is all stacked up Vidromecanica sets out its latest high and low speed ware solution, designed for glass containers from bottles to flacons.

z Fig 1 . Servo Stacker VSTC-04.

Transmission Brush-less motors

Servo Stacker VSTC-04 The Servo Stacker VSTC-04 (Fig 1) is software controlled servo-mechanical technology, whose robust design and flexibility in programming accepts changes to the motion profiles while the machine is running.

The new stacker allows stacking of glass ware of any form at the right speed at each point of the transfer to the annealing lehr belt in a continuous trouble-free production.

Articles arrive at the front of the lehr aligned and equally spaced to each other.

The speed (articles per minute) depends

on the machine production rate.

To prevent the articles from falling, Vidromecanica stackers have smooth speed change movements and a side displacement to follow the articles movement in the cross-conveyor. The contact points with glass are made with graphite-coated parts to avoid deterioration of glass quality.

The stacker sets out aligned rows of articles to help the air flow during the annealing curve and to allow homogeneous cold-end surface treatment. Spraying in-between rows prevents any spray material from contaminating the inside of containers.

Programmed motion profiles are filed in the computer memory together with the respective ware data.

The stacker allows control of three axis (X, Y, Z). Two axis grant the lateral displacement following the articles in X and Y, and the other axis grants the displacement in height, axis Z.

Performances Max. number of cycles: 20 per minute.

Speed limit: 1000mm per second Max. ware height : 500mm.

Max. Loading stroke: 380mm.

Position accuracy: Top speed 0.9mm / Low speed 0.5mm Power Supply: 400 V, 50Hz, Threephase.

Protection degree: IP54 General data Cross travel 250 mm Longitudinal stroke 440 mm Max. lift 420 mm Dimensions: Width: 1710 mm Depth: 1400 mm Height: 1330 mm

Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

W

ith over 30 years of experience in the glass industry, Vidromecanica provides handling equipment for hot glass solutions to customers throughout the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glass plants. Its Servo-Stacker VSTC-04 lehr loader pushes rows of recently formed hot glass containers off one moving conveyor into an annealing lehr belt.

Control System Industrial PC with axis control board.

User-friendly interface.

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Handling

z Fig 2. Lateral view of Servo Stacker VSTC-04.

z Fig 3. Top view of Servo Stacker VSTC-04.

z Fig 5. User-friendly Software.

z Fig 6. 6 cycles/minute mechanical model.

z Fig. 4: Touch Panel Console.

z Fig 7. 10 cycles/minute mechanical model with electronic speed variation.

The drive components have been selected for long-term life and can also handle rigid and relatively heavy push bars without any disturbing vibrations.

High loading capacity bearings and a rigid structure and stacker bar provide a global stability in every movement of the stacker rod.

Its stacker VSTC-04 guarantees a trouble free and stable transfer of hot glassware into the annealing lehr.

The company has developed the ware transfer to reduce job change time and increase ware safety in the glass industry (Fig 2).

www.glass-international.com

Smooth ware handling The motion profiles for the push bar can be easily programmed on the stacker by using the programmable points feature.

The speed of the transversal motion is automatically adjusted to the production speed.

All points on the motion profile can be viewed at the control panel located on the stacker and can be fine tuned while the machine is running.

The use of sinusoidal motion formulas for the acceleration and deceleration phases results in smooth operation even for short strokes.

An unlimited number of ware types can be stored in the computer and can be re-loaded within seconds on the following job change (Fig 3, 4, 5).

Construction features r Rugged design – prevents vibration transmission to pusher beam r Smooth motions r Change to motion profiles on running machine r Panel located on stacker for convenience in making adjustments r Jerk-free slow motion for transfer to the annealing lehr belt r Completely enclosed machine r Small dimensions r Height adjustable framework r Comprehensive programming r Quick change push-bar – ware loss reduced to a minimum r Push-bar constructed to compensate for heat related elongation r Built-in air cooling system r The equipment can be easily removed once its structure is supported by four wheels r Grooved pads can be adjusted to handle containers of any shape r Stabilising bar for unstable articles r Self standing unit, easy to install

group, which is now responsible for the export of equipment manufactured

by Vidromecanica. The companies’ know-how is the result of more than 30 years of dedication, research and development, which involved testing and experimenting with a wide range of technical solutions to meet customer needs.

With glass machinery solutions for many applications of the glass industry, equipment and systems from Vidromecanica are used worldwide in the glass container, tableware or technical glass sectors. r

* Vidromecanica, Portugal Tel +.351.244 555 060 vidromecanica@vidromecanica.com www.vidromecanica.com

Vidromecanica manufactures three types of stackers, to cover different production rate demands: Fig 6, Fig 7, Fig 8.

Glassmechanics is a company of the  Fig 8. 16 cycles/minute mechanical model with 3 axes servo control.

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Benchmarking

What does good performance look like?

Mark Ziegler* outlines a series of KPIs and benchmarks that help improve the glass production process.

I

n the day-to-day work of a glass plant, expertise is necessary not only when production is interrupted but when new technologies are being implemented or plant performance is being pushed to the next level. Heye offers a benchmark set for technical assistance – an expertise for productivity and quality improvement in the glassmaker’s production.

Many factors are required to achieve good glass. Processes are often complex and slight amendments might create severe problems. The Heye Technical Assistance Agreement team (TAA) consists of glass people who were educated in glass production. They know that efficient production is not the result of a single person, it is always the result of a production team.

The TAA team always has the whole production process in it sights, from batch composition through to melting, glass conditioning, hot end production, inspection quality control, and palletizing.

Measurable benefits With its benchmarking programme and KPI-set, Heye offers know-how transfer for efficient production and delivers a framework to track and measure the improvements and return on investment (ROI), (Fig 1.) Benefits include more plant productivity, increased product quality and job safety, and reduced energy consumption (Fig. 2.)

Plant productivity The goal of every glassmaker is to increase plant productivity. These are big words that require comprehensive analysis. Heye experts examine the current production status using Pack to Time (PTT) and down time analysis. PTT is the total number of glass containers sent to the warehouse (the number of good articles) divided by the total number of gobs cut during the machine hours available.

Down time is chargeable when you lose tonnage and/or containers due to breakdowns on technical facilities (hot

end or cold end). All downtime reasons of more than one minute of machine standstill should be reported.

Increased product quality The KPI ‘critical defects in manufacturing’ is the ratio of the number of critical defect reports per million good articles manufactured. Critical defects are defined as glass defects that could cause injury to a consumer or a filling line operative.

Job safety Lost time accident rate (LTAR) is the number of all lost time accidents (LTA) per number of FTEs (full-time equivalent employee, average number over the last 12 months). Lost time accident (LTA) occurs when the employee is absent for one day/ shift or longer. r

*Marketing Manager, Heye International, Obernkirchen, Germany. www.heye-international.com

Core-set of KPIs

Positive return-on-invest (ROI) in three years 2.000.000

e

Productivity

e

Quality

500.000

Pack to time, down time

Critical defects

Giga Joule per packed ton

Lost time accicent rate

0 -500.000 -1.000.000 -1.500.000 Euros

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

e

Energy

e

Job safety

Assumptions e Standard plant, three lines, detailed figures depending on local situation e Including 500k Euro investment in technical equipment in year 1 per line

z Fig 1. ROI chart for a standard plant.

z Fig 2. Heye’s core set of KPIs.

www.glass-international.com

1.500.000 1.000.000

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Profile

WALTEC Maschinen GmbH Kronacher Str. 2a 96352 Wilhelmsthal - Steinberg Germany contact: Mr. Ulrich Zirfas, Managing Director Tel: +49 9260 9901-0 info@waltec.de www.waltec.de

Stand A09

Stand E06

VDV Lubricants N.V. Steenkaaistraat 17 9200 Baasrode Belgium Tel: +32(52)/20.39.52 francois.breye@vdv-lub.com www.glassline.be

Stand G06

Agr International, Inc Tel: +1 724-482-2163 Fax:+1 724-482-2767 sales@agrintl.com www.agrintl.com

ZIPPE Industrieanlagen GmbH PO box 1665 D-97866 Werthein Germany zippe@zippe.de www.zippe.de

Stand D12

Pennekamp Ernst Pennekamp GmbH & Co OHG Königsfelder Strasse 38-42 D-58256 Ennepetal Germany Tel +49 (0) 2333 605-113 mmastrolembo@pennekamp.de

Stand F01

Stand B07

Iris Inspection Machines ZI du Chêne 14 rue du 35ème Régiment d’Aviation 69500 Bron France Tel: +33/ (0) 4 72 78 35 27 sdevillard@iris-im.fr www.iris-im.com

F.I.C. (UK) Limited Long Rock Industrial Estate Penzance, Cornwall, TR20 8HX, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1736 366962 general@fic-uk.com www.fic-uk.com

Stand H01 ROFIN BAASEL France Z.I. La Petite Montagne Sud 14-16 Allée du Cantal, 91090 LISSES Tel: +33 (0)1 69 11 36 36 email: info@rofin.fr web: www.rofin.com

5

www.glass-international.com

22 & 23 September 2015 Expo Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Mexico

To find out more about the show visit www.glassmanevents.com or contact Ken Clark at kenclark@quartzltd.com www.glassmanevents.com/latin-america

92 Glass International April 2015

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Inspection

Pallet audit and defect tracking Vertech’s Fabio Castro* outlines a pallet audit tracking system that provides data collection which can improve the manufacturing process.

M

z Fig 1. Analysis - set out status according to the AQL blocked and passed.

ERP system.

The power of the solution is the integration of the information from the different departments at the forming area (hot end), inspection area (cold end), quality controls (on the line and laboratory) and pallet audits (final control).

As a result, teamwork and reactivity are enhanced because the information from the quality audits is available to the different teams, allowing a transversal interaction of the personnel in real time.

Solution

z Fig 2. Enter the defects seen on moulds during control.

the decision-making process with tools for accurate data analysis.

How it works SIL Pallet Audit or final control of pallets guarantees the quality of the products through statistical setouts defined according to the AQL standards set by the quality department based on the client, the type of product, the size of the sample and the acceptable quality level of defects.

The quality auditors enter the defects found in the inspected samples associated to the mould numbers using a semi-automated interface (Fig. 2). This information is used by the system to determine the appropriate status of each pallet – good, quarantined, resorting or cullet. The outcomes can also be automatically transferred to the factory’s

Vertech’ understands that each manufacturing reality can have different approaches to the same problems, and that is why the SIL system was designed as a modular and flexible solution that adapts to any glass manufacturing scenario.

SIL system provides line monitoring solutions using automatic data collection from the forming and inspection equipment, mould performance, dimensional instruments, attribute controls, line performance, production information, quality controls on the lines and the lab, internal and external resorting and alarms.

Additionally, SIL provides an intranet production portal that allows web access in real time to key performance indicators and production information from any PC or smart device.

With the know-how acquired from installations in more than 500 production lines in over 100 glass manufacturing facilities around the world, SIL system is a tool for line monitoring and production supervision among the glass-making community. r

* Director Operations & Business Development, North and South America, Vertech’, Chalon-sur-Saônel, France www.vertech.eu

www.glass-international.com

ost glass manufacturers face the same issues when managing the quality of their final products.

Ensuring that the quality levels meet the clients’ expectations can result in overheads that reduce the profitability of the business, especially if the procedures involved in this process are manually tracked and dissociated from the information of the production lines.

Taking control of this process is a major game changer for glass manufacturers.

Thanks to Vertech’, several manufacturing facilities around the world have achieved unprecedented results using the SIL Pallet Audit and Defect Tracking solution, specifically designed for the glass manufacturing process.

This solution integrates the information from the production lines with the information of statistical controls on the pallets, including the defect association to the moulds, to create a tool that helps minimise production costs.

Since blocking pallets could be expensive and time consuming, SIL Pallet Audit also helps optimise the logistic management of pallets with automatic AQL verdicts, print out of personalised pallet labels and pallet count based on AQL verdicts for an accurate pack-to-melt ratio calculation.

SIL Pallet Audit has been developed to reduce the pallet blockage ratio by providing glass manufacturers with a reliable final control system that tracks the lifecycle of each pallet including information on the changes of pallet status.

This software simplifies data collection with ergonomic interfaces for the auditors and minimises the workload with automated statistical analysis of the pallets and automatic AQL verdicts (Fig. 1).

The data collected can improve the manufacturing process in real time by automatically sending audit information to the forming area as well as improving

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Inspection

Hot end: Where quality is made Philippe Spiteri* explores the benefits of Bucher Emhart Glass’s Forming Process Monitor System, which is now integrated with the FlexIS Forming Line Control System and features defect detection capability.

I

n today’s global market the glass container industry faces the challenge of improving productivity while reducing costs, with ever increasing quality requirements in the context of harsh environmental issues and pressure from alternative packaging solutions.

The glass container manufacturing industry has maintained a relatively traditional approach resulting in pack rates in the low to mid 90%, with considerable investment in the cold end to sort quality in order to meet customer expectations of zero defects delivered.

To achieve long-term sustainability, however, it is necessary to focus on preventing defects in the hot end, where the quality is made.

Forming Process Monitor System

www.glass-international.com

FlexRadar is a glass container forming process monitor system, using infrared technology to capture the thermal signature of glass containers as they travel on the flight conveyor directly after the IS machine. Those thermal images are a direct representation of the

z FlexRadar section screen.

glass distribution within the container, allowing for the identification of glass forming process deviations and quality issues. They also allow for detection and rejection of critical defects in the hot end.

Using two high-resolution infrared cameras positioned at an angle on opposite sides of the conveyor, FlexRadar captures thermal images from each passing container.

Those thermal images are processed to identify cavities producing containers with vertical glass distribution, horizontal glass distribution, or dimensions that stand out from the overall population.

Cavities or sections producing outliers are quickly identified and reported to the hot end operator for corrective action.

In addition to trend analysis and the identification of outlier containers, FlexRadar rejects down ware, stuck ware, freak, leaner, choke neck, stone, blister, birdswing, mould fin, thin neck and thin wall. Rejecting those critical defects at the hot end makes for a smooth transition at the ware transfer and protects the cold end equipment. It reduces the response time

to anomalies, and with all information cavity-correlated, allows for root cause analysis enabling the operator to quickly resolve the problem.

Closed-loop FlexRadar offers benefits as a stand-alone machine. Its real value emerges when integrated with the FlexIS Forming Line Control system.

With FlexIS controlling all settings from the feeder to the stacker, FlexRadar becomes the ‘eyes of the machine’.

Based on the container position on the flight conveyor FlexIS automatically adjusts the timing of the push-out to maintain proper container spacing, preventing interference on the conveyor and jams at the ware transfer.

Additionally, long-term tests at Bucher Emhart Glass’s research centre show that FlexIS can recognise drift in the forming process based on feedback from FlexRadar and automatically adjust process parameters without operator Continued>>

z FlexRadar overview screen.

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Inspection

Machine operator

Glass distribution control (under development)

Close-loop Bottle position control (requires FlexPusher)

z FlexRadar operation diagram.

intervention, essentially closing the loop between end-product and forming process. These self-regulating capabilities reduce the demand on the hot-end operator while bringing stability to the process.

System description FlexRadar is designed for extreme environments by incorporating sealed electronics with solid state cooling and backup air cooling. The user interface panel contains a high-temperature 19” display with touchscreen. Several user interface panels can be located in the control room and at the operator station. FlexRadar also supports ethernet connection to the factory information system for remote monitoring, realtime data gathering, data archive, and integration in production reports. Each gob cut in the hot end is an opportunity to generate revenue.

However, the tedious adjustment of the many parameters involved in transforming each gob into a defect-free container is still dependent on the skill level of bottlemakers.

Bucher Emhart Glass strives to offer solutions for glass container manufacturers to optimise their production through continuous improvement. By reducing dependence on bottlemakers, FlexRadar, combined with closed-loop helps eliminate variations from operator to operator and from shift to shift for a more stable process and a more efficient operation. r

Top shelf challenges at the cold end Many inspection machine producers claim to have the ability to run the odd-shaped, high-end glass articles found on the top shelves in many pubs and bars. However, Bucher Emhart Glass believes it has taken this to a new level with its FleXinspect product line.

S

ince the introduction of the FleXinspect inspection systems, Bucher Emhart Glass has focused on optimising its entire machine family to meet the inspection needs presented in today’s glass market.

Although the advantage of having modular inspection flexibility is core to the machines design and purpose, there is an even greater advantage with the design that often goes unnoticed: The FleXinspect system’s ability to handle unusual shaped ware in a wide ware range, from small, to tall, to wide or narrow.

This advantage is especially evident in the FleXinspect T, a fully servo motor driven rotary inspection machine designed to perform multiple inspections on glass containers.

The machine was designed to support all of the required inspections modules needed to detect the ‘critical’ defects being produced with today’s hot end processes.

Container handling The secret to precise container inspection is, and always has been, container handling.

To accurately perform inspection on difficult to handle, nonround containers, the machine must maintain control of that container in all phases of the process.

That is why the engineering team at Bucher Emhart Glass continues to devote so much time and effort into ensuring that the FleXinspect product line excels in the glass container handling along with inspection.

Features to highlight when it comes to optimising container handling are brushless non-round container handling and FleX Orient – Vision-based container orientation using servo motor rotation.

Non-round containers Why is this so important? It is no secret that non-round container handling Continued>>

 Bucher Emhart’s Smart-cam.

www.glass-international.com

IS Machine

Product Manager, Bucher Emhart Glass, St Petersburg, Florida www.bucheremhartglass.com

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within a rotary machine is often viewed as an artform. In the past, attention was placed on the mounting and positioning of bristle brushes that were installed randomly within a machine to help guide or align a bottle into the next inspection station or the machine exit.

In almost every plant that produces non-round containers, there is typically one person who is the resident expert on finetuning non-round handling.

As long as the expert is in the plant attending to the machine, everything seems to run fine. When the expert is no longer present, the handling of the container in the machine starts to deteriorate. This becomes an endless cycle. As the day goes on, you regularly see someone working on a machine trying to optimise the handling by playing around with the position of brushes until everything is good again and the bottles handle properly. With inspection equipment of non-round containers this has always been a way of life.

A solution to this challenge is the flexibility of the guide rail system and the open frame design provided by FleXinspect T. In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s machine, specially designed support rails are used instead of brushes for the container that is running. Unlike the bristles on the old brushes, these newly designed rails stay the way they are set until you change over to the next job.

No longer is someone required to replace or adjust the brushes as the bristles bend, break, and deform during the production run.

This is a big step in helping to reduce the amount of time lost by highly skilled maintenance people who are forced to continuously try to optimise the container handling. More importantly, it frees them up to perform other maintenance tasks within the plant.

FleX Orient

www.glass-international.com

Machines designed to orient non-round glass containers have been around for years, but with more distinct shapes and heavily engraved bottles being introduced in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s highend liquor markets, the need for these orientation devices continues to grow.

A recent development to expand the functionality of the FleXinspect T was the addition of a vision-based container orienter that can be trained to look for a specific feature on a glass container while it is being rotated and inspected.

As with all of the inspection elements that can be added to the FleXinspect T to customise the configuration for the specific need, the new FleX Orient can be installed on new or existing equipment to increase the machineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s functionality.

By using intelligent camera imaging and coupling the results with the precision control of servo motor rotation devices, the machine can now be set to stop the container rotation in any orientation.

This new system can be equipped with a vision-based verification system at the exit of the machine to ensure that the container orientation is correct as it leaves the machine.

So whether the need is to confirm that the containers going into the box or onto the pallet are properly oriented, or that the containers are all facing the same direction for a more precise inspection on a downstream machine, FleXinspect T not only inspects the container but also performs the handling functionality required to ensure a perfect product every time. r

Bucher Emhart Glass www.bucheremhartglass.com

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Ware handling

Pennine launches thin washer link and spacer chain U K company Pennine Industrial has launched its new thin washer link and spacer chain.

The chain follows the same assembly as its normal link and spacer chain, but uses new thinner washers.

According to the company, the chain has two advantages over a normal link

and spacer chain.

There is a 25%-30% more link surface, which gives improved resistance to elongation and link height wear.

There is also a 50% reduction in the distance between links, which gives improved stability compared to a normal link and spacer chain.

The chain is suitable for both IS machine and cross conveyor applications where an all link chain is not the preferred option due to weight and cooling.

Pennine Industrial, Skelmanthorpe, UK www.pennine.org

A normal link and spacer chain (left), the new thin washered chain (middle) and a comparison in sizes of the two chains (right).

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Inspection

Dual camera for hot end inspection

Fig 2: The IR-D camera system in operation.

Fig 1. The IR-D overview screen.

Paul Schreuders* describes the latest version of Xpar Visionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s InfraRed Dual camera system.

www.glass-international.com

T

he new IR-D V7 software is the result of several years of experience in contact with the many users of Xpar Vision InfraRed technology.

Customers have provided their feedback for improvements or suggestions for better use of this system for hot end inspection and process monitoring.

From the many ideas received, the best have been incorporated in this improved software. Compared with the current version it incorporates changes and improvements with regard to camera set up, functionality and accuracy.

In general, the software has become more accessible and easier to use with better inspection performance. These changes are in alignment with Xparâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goal of bringing automation and perfection into the forming process for glass containers.

Camera set up Until now, camera set up has been complex and required an understanding of infrared camera technology. With the latest software version, the camera set up has been simplified.

Camera setting has been automated and is activated by a one-button-click. Multiintegration and splitting have been automated as well and are again activated by a one-button-click. The whole image-processing set-up is now easy to configure. Logically, this leads to easier and broader use in general, and in particular shortens the IR-D set-up during a job change.

Fig 3: Xpar Vision InfraRed Dual camera system.

Continued>>

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Inspection

Functionality The InfraRed Dual camera system has been on the market since the year 2000.

In the current version, the software contains detection modules for intensity/asymmetry, glass distribution, verticality, shape, distorted glass, defects, fin defects, thin spots and transport.

In the new V7 software, existing modules have been improved and new modules added. For example: Thin spots set up has been made easier; for transport, reject on ware position can be activated; and for each of the four modules in the distorted glass module, a dedicated name can be given. Other modules that have been improved are the shape and defects modules, which are now more accurate.

The eye-catcher of the new V7 software is the overview screen showing the IR-images for each cavity in one single overview in real-time. (Fig 1) It provides an instant indication of the variation glass distribution for the IS-Machine. If users want to keep using the ‘old’ overview, it can be selected alternatively.

One of the new modules is diameter and ovality. With the latest software, it is possible to measure the bottle diameter on multiple heights in the bottle. With the diameter module, it is possible to set up limits for diameter and ovality and detect and/ or reject accordingly. As with the intensity/asymmetry, verticality and shape modules, the diameter module is also supported by socalled ‘control charts’.

Next to the diameter module, the hot spots module has also been added. As with the distorted glass, defects, fin defects and thin spots modules, the hot spots module supports the detection of specific defects; it is to be expected that birdswing detection (and rejection) will gain effectiveness.

One of the functions of the InfraRed Dual camera system (IR-D, Figs 2 & 3) is hot end inspection of bottles, where every bottle is compared with specific bottle settings and qualified as good or bad. Bad bottles will be rejected. The user can decide to save images from the bad bottles, to inspect these at a later time.

In the new version the maximum of bottle images that can be stored has been doubled.

From time to time, these images are analysed for root cause analyses. In order to make the root cause analysis easier and accessible, filters for ‘viewed images’ have been added.

With these filters, it will be possible, for example, to discriminate between rejected and non-rejected bottles, to focus on all images from e.g. one specific mould and to focus on images related to a specific defect. It goes without saying that with this addition of filters for view images, the analysis of images and related root causes will be much more effective.

Accuracy www.glass-international.com

With the launch of the V7 software and the new camera set-up, the resolution of the camera images has been increased. Together with the latest smart software algorithms, the accuracy of defect detection has been increased considerably. Logically, defect detection (and rejection) has gained effectiveness.

The new software IR-D V7 from Xpar Vision brings hot end inspection and process monitoring to the next level of simplicity in use and accuracy in the detection of critical defects.

This software will be rolled out from the second quarter of 2015 onwards.

*Chief Executive Officer, Xpar Vision, Groningen, The Netherlands Web: www.xparvision.com

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Inspection

SPT2 system applies the pressure David Dineff reports on Agr International’s SPT2 automated sampling system – a device that can perform volume tests at 300 bottles per hour.

A

gr International’s Sampling Pressure Tester (SPT2) is designed to manage throughput, pressure generation, handling versatility and measurement precision.

Agr said the product (Fig. 1) has merged the performance of previous Agr pressure testing systems with the latest pressure and volume measurement technology.

This combination has resulted in a device that can perform accurate, handsfree pressure and volume tests on bottles at a rate of up to 300 bottles per hour.

www.glass-international.com

Details The Agr SPT2 automated testing station is designed to provide critical pressure strength and volume performance data for glass containers, on a sampling basis, on the production floor.

Integrated into the production line, it can automatically test and collect pressure and volume data on bottles selected for sampling, without operator intervention, on a 24/7 basis.

At the heart of the SPT2 is an advanced, controlled-velocity pressure generation system that can pressurise containers up to 1000 psi (one minute equivalent) while providing accurate and controlled pressure throughout the testing process.

The pressure system is designed to meet the testing requirements defined in ASTM C-147, Standard Test Method for Internal Pressure Strength of Glass Containers, and ISO 7458, where a constant-rate of increasing pressure must be applied to the bottle in a precise and defined manner.

The SPT2 offers precision in the control and application of pressure, resulting in accuracy and repeatability of test data.

The SPT2 incorporates a Linux-based architecture and operating system to manage the continuous, multi-function operations of the system.

Linux’s ability to run on embedded computing platforms is an advantage for

the elevated temperatures of the factoryfloor environment and 24/7 operation of the SPT2.

Features One of the features of the SPT2 is an optional volume measurement system.

The volume measurement system uses positive-displacement technology that makes it possible to fill at any rate, without compromising accuracy or repeatability.

This method ensures rapid fill and precise measurement while overcoming the problems and inaccuracies associated with flow-meter based systems, the complexity of gravimetric products and variability due to water density.

With this approach, measurement precision is not affected by water quality, container shape or rate of fill, regardless of the size and volume of the container.

The positive-displacement filling technique, in combination with a highprecision fill height sensor, makes it possible to deliver defined volume and fill measurements to a high level of accuracy at any point within the process.

Final test data can be reported as volume at defined fill point, fill height at defined volume, brimful volume or any combination of these.

To ensure optimal throughput, the SPT2 employs a two-station design with concurrent volume measurement and pressure testing operations.

A servo-controlled positioning system provides for optimal bottle travel and placement through the system.

Continuous bottle management and closed-loop monitoring of all processes facilitate the bottle processing and throughput.

Robert Cowden, Agr’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “We challenged the project team to dramatically increase the valueadded with the new product design.

“The project team exceeded our

expectations with the new features and performance of the SPT2, including throughput, measurement precision and flexible handling, while achieving a durable industrial design.”

The SPT2 can be configured on a sampling line and work directly with most commercial plant-wide process management systems. The SPT2 is also designed to operate with Agr’s OmniLab automated measurement system.

When integrated with the OmniLab system, pressure and volume as well as dimension, weight and thickness data can be correlated into one report. r

*Product Marketing Director, Agr International, Inc., Butler, PA, USA. www.agrintl.com.

z Fig. 1: AGR’s Sampling Pressure Tester SPT2

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Inspection

A small company with a big vision Graeme Reid* highlights how a company launched at the glasstec show last year has plans for the glass container inspection market.

W

ith its public launch into the glass industry at glasstec 2014, Pro-Sight has brought new ideas and products into the area of glass container inspection, both at the hot end and the cold end of the production process (Fig. 1).

Pro-Sightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in house design team develops compact inspection systems that are aimed at specific inspection tasks which, as a result, can focus entirely on identifying and rejecting a specific set of production defects.

These inspection modules have been designed to supplement in-plant inspection procedures in order to enhance the reliability and efficiency of the inspection process.

Two systems from the Pro-Sight range of equipment are discussed here.

Hot end - glass wall thickness inspection Hot end inspection equipment looking for general defects is not a new concept in container production, but Pro-Sight has developed a small servo driven system which forming personnel can use to check glass thickness and distribution as soon as the bottle has been removed from the machine conveyor.

This could be either by routine sampling throughout a standard production run, or during start-up following a job change where the machine operator is able to test individual cavity samples with the results displayed instantly and then logged for reporting and traceability (Fig. 2). The system is also useful during new product development, where blank and finish mould design can be fine-tuned to

optimise glass distribution.

The Hot End Wall Thickness System is an offline device and can be a permanent component of the hot end inspection routine, or could be used as a mobile forming development tool, capable of being moved from line to line as and when required for job development or for troubleshooting glass thickness issues during a production run.

With PLC control and servo drives, the system is programmed via a user friendly menu-driven touch screen HMI, and will then measure the glass wall thickness to an accuracy of 0.01mm at a specific and programmable number of locations from heel to finish. The results are displayed on the HMI screen and stored or exported Continued>>

www.glass-international.com

î ¸ Fig. 1: The Pro-Sight Stand at Glasstec last year.

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for production records. This makes it a valuable tool for the forming specialists, providing immediate evaluation of set up changes made on the forming machine.

Cold end inspection z Fig. 2: Image taken from a Pro-Sight Alphanumeric Base Code Reader showing the clearly defined mould number.

z Fig.3: Stuck Plug defect detected by a Pro-SightTWO System.

r Glass World 2015 7th International Exhibition for Glass Technology, Machinery and Equipment.

April 21st -23rd 2015 Cairo International Convention Center, Egypt CONTACT: http://glassworldex.com/ r Glassman Europe 2015 The world-famous Glassman exhibition and conference is to return to Lyon, France.

May 06th -07th 2015 Cité Centre de Congrès de Lyon, France CONTACT:jeremyfordrey@quartzltd.com www.glassmanevents.com r China Glass 2015 Organised by the Chinese Ceramic Society in association with the China National Association for Glass Industry.

May 20th -23th 2015 Beijing, China CONTACT: www.chinaglass-expo.com r Furnace Solutions 10 Organised by the Society of Glass Technology. Day-long conference exploring furnace issues. Preceded by a Training Day. June 4th 2015 Stoke-on-Trent, UK CONTACT: www.furnacesolutions.co.uk r Mir Stekla 2015 Key glass industry event for Russia, the CIS region and Eastern Europe.

June 08th -11th 2015

*Engineering Manager, Pro-Sight-Vision, Dewsbury, UK www.pro-sight-vision.com Moscow, Russia CONTACT: www.mirstekla-expo.ru/en r 13th International Seminar on Furnace Design The event will focus on Furnace Design - Operation & Process Simulation.

June 17th -18th 2015 Velke Karlovice, Czech Republic CONTACT: seminar@gsl.cz r Glass Performance Days 2015 The event will once again bring together industry leaders and glass technology experts.

June 24th -26th 2015 Tampere, Finland CONTACT: jorma.vitkala@gpd.fi r ICG Annual Meeting The next International Commission on Glass (ICG) Annual Meeting.

September 20th -23rd 2015 Bangkok, Thailand.

CONTACT: montana@optimum.co.th www.icgbangkok2015.com r Glassman Latin America Glassman will be returning to Mexico in 2015 and stand sales are already underway.

September 21st -22nd 2015 Expo Guadalajara, Guadalarjara, Mexico.

CONTACT: kenclark@quartzltd.com www.glassmanevents.com

www.glass-international.com

The glassmaker’s diary

Glass manufacturers typically use large, expensive cold end inspection machines with a high number of cameras, but these machines do have limitations in certain cases. Glass manufacturing companies who specialise in non-standard container shapes and designs can find the traditional inspection machines difficult to set-up when inspecting a complicated embossed logo or medallion which could be susceptible to particular defects. Pro-Sight Vision has developed a specific inspection module with two independently moveable cameras which helps to solve such issues.

With its high definition vision system and adjustable lightsource, the Pro-SightTWO system is a compact, mobile standalone inspection station (Fig. 3). The system features a menu-driven touchscreen operator interface. Ease of set up enables it to be focused on a specific problem area of the container, including the side wall, shoulder, neck or finish.

As with other Pro-Sight Vision products, the Pro-Sight-TWO can be permanently installed on a production line or alternatively, because it is mobile, Pro-Sight-TWO can be easily moved from line to line and used as a short term measure on any job in the plant to deal with a particular inspection problem.

The Pro-Sight-TWO is also a useful way of adding low cost vision inspection to a Resort Line.

Hot End Glass Wall Thickness Measurement and the Pro-Sight-TWO described above are not all the company manufacture. It has a full product offering including sealing surface inspection, base inspection and stand-alone mould rejector in inspection, and star wheel separators and dual belt separators in ware handling.

As a small custom build specialist, Pro-Sight-Vision also designs and builds one-off machines to customers’ specific requirements. r

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Glass International directory 2015 contact: Esme Horn to receive your copy

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