Dutch inspection company Xpar Vision is to speak at the Glassman Europe conference.

Its CEO, Paul Schreuders will present a paper titled: Container Glass Forming in 2020/2025: the Dark Factory.

The Groningen, Netherlands based company gave the paper at the recent 91st Glastechnische Tagung 2017 conference in Germany after an invitation by Professor Dr. Ing. Hessenkemper of Technische Universität Bergakademie, in Freiberg, Germany.

During the presentation Mr Schreuders first gave an introduction to the company which was formed in the year 2000 with hot end inspection and process monitoring.

Since then, the company has grown into the fields of hot end sensors, automated closed loops and robot applications within the global container glass industry.

Mr Schreuders commented on the characteristics of container glass forming and production today.

He said: “Due to unpredictable changes in cullet quality, viscosity, temperature, homogeneity, ambient temperature, deterioration and wear of material, the glass forming process itself is not stable and the outcome is often unpredictable.

“As of today the average efficiency is too low (average 85%), bottles are too thick and too heavy (average 40%) and we rely too much on the experience of operators and specialists. As a result, we even introduce more variations, for instance by swabbing (every operator swabs differently).

“Knowing the IS machines have become bigger (up to 48 cavities), it is simply impossible for any operator to control the process up to a higher level than we do today.

"Unless we start doing something completely different, we will not come any further than today’s efficiency and weight values. And that is not helping us to improve our competitiveness with other packaging materials, nor is it helpful to give our industry a ‘greener’ image.”

The central theme in the presentation is the absolute need for automation (and thus sensors) within the container glass forming process.

Various examples prove that sensors and automation can lead to improvements in stability and predictability, and thus in efficiency and weight reduction.

Mr Schreuders said: “As an industry we can do 20-30% better than today. We should welcome automation as the answer to many of our questions and problems in container glass forming today.”

He concluded that many sensors and closed loops, even swabbing robots, are available today to the glassmakers. Applying these new technologies will ensure a step-by-step change within the industry, he said.

Prof. Hessenkemper agreed on Schreuder’s plea. “I think Mr Schreuders’ presentation focused exactly on the main topics of glass forming in the next years,” he concluded.

Pictured: Mr Schreuders speaking at the recent 91st Glastechnische Tagung 2017 conference in Germany.