Debates and discussion on what to decide the good tempering furnaces and factors to produce the good quality of tempered glass.

Mujash (Supply Chain Professional):  more interesting way to take forward if you ask specifics. pros and cons of each furnaces. – Glaston, EFCO, uniglass, quite a few chinese glass plant manufacturers whose quality is comparable to the top league. type – electrical , or oil/gas fired furnaces Alignment of heating coil . How do you want it parallel or perpendicular , convection furnaces ( but is it getting the benefit it says) electrical cosumption. Quality of glass / bend / bow / optical qualities etc.

James (Operation Director of glass fabricating factories): Operations and maintenance far surpass any one manufacturer’s qualities. The best furnace run by poorly trained or inexperienced operators is doomed for failure. The worst furnace with skilled operators will give far better quality.

Adam (Director of British Glass Toughening Factory): 100% agree – what do you guys use?

James (Operation Director of glass fabricating factories): thanks for asking, I can’t answer directly for proprietary issues but can say local parts, service, and number of support personnel were very important in all of our decisions. The control and monitoring systems are also real important, number of zones, convection air scheme, etc. Lots of choices beyond manufacturer based upon the glass types you run.

Adam (Director of British Glass Toughening Factory): yes these were all factors we have been talking about here… would be interesting to open up this debate further? we have a sister company down the coast in Florida that have their own plant too

Mika (Process Expert at Glaston): I’m an expert and instructor of the process and I agree with James that the process performance is depending a lot of the operator skills and motivation. We here at Glaston are working to make the process fully automated in one day, but in my experts opinion, there is just too much work still to be done to disregard human factor in near future. Unfortunately, at least in Europe and US there is a common problem in glass industry to get the right kind of people to work some of the processes. I always urge our customers to let their tempering operators to take ownership and responsibility of the process and study it by any means possible. Rarely the one who is in charge of the process and its performance fully understands what’s going on in tempering process.

Debates and discussion on what to decide the good tempering furnaces and factors to produce the good quality of tempered glass.

Mujash (Supply Chain Professional):  more interesting way to take forward if you ask specifics. pros and cons of each furnaces. – Glaston, EFCO, uniglass, quite a few chinese glass plant manufacturers whose quality is comparable to the top league. type – electrical , or oil/gas fired furnaces Alignment of heating coil . How do you want it parallel or perpendicular , convection furnaces ( but is it getting the benefit it says) electrical cosumption. Quality of glass / bend / bow / optical qualities etc.

James (Operation Director of glass fabricating factories): Operations and maintenance far surpass any one manufacturer’s qualities. The best furnace run by poorly trained or inexperienced operators is doomed for failure. The worst furnace with skilled operators will give far better quality.

Adam (Director of British Glass Toughening Factory): 100% agree – what do you guys use? 

James (Operation Director of glass fabricating factories): thanks for asking, I can’t answer directly for proprietary issues but can say local parts, service, and number of support personnel were very important in all of our decisions. The control and monitoring systems are also real important, number of zones, convection air scheme, etc. Lots of choices beyond manufacturer based upon the glass types you run.

Adam (Director of British Glass Toughening Factory): yes these were all factors we have been talking about here… would be interesting to open up this debate further? we have a sister company down the coast in Florida that have their own plant too

Mika (Process Expert at Glaston): I’m an expert and instructor of the process and I agree with James that the process performance is depending a lot of the operator skills and motivation. We here at Glaston are working to make the process fully automated in one day, but in my experts opinion, there is just too much work still to be done to disregard human factor in near future. Unfortunately, at least in Europe and US there is a common problem in glass industry to get the right kind of people to work some of the processes. I always urge our customers to let their tempering operators to take ownership and responsibility of the process and study it by any means possible. Rarely the one who is in charge of the process and its performance fully understands what’s going on in tempering process.