GW: Before recently taking over responsibility for the Technovation Centre in Gosselies, Belgium, what was your experience with AGC?

I’m a material science engineer. I began my journey at AGC in October 2005 when I joined the R&D centre. I started by supporting the float glass production and was also leading a project for solar glass applications.

In 2010, I joined the float production team of our plant in Southern Italy and became their production manager. It was my first real experience in manufacturing. After two years, I joined the European Headquarters, supervising and leading the European float activities.

In 2017, I became Manufacturing Director for Europe leading the primary operations: float, laminated, coaters, mirrors, etched glass and cast glass and also the industrial IT. In my scope were our 14 float plants, across continental Europe. We manufacture and ship more than three million tons of glass per year.

Since April 2022, after 12 years in manufacturing, I’m proud to have been appointed leader of the AGC’s Technovation Centre (ATC).

GW: As Head of the Technovation Centre, how would you describe the set-up and activities of the research facility?

The Technovation Centre is part of AGC Inc. group and belongs to two divisions: Architectural Glass Europe and Americas and AGC Automotive Europe. We are active in the flat glass business for both architectural and automotive sectors in terms of production and transformation.

In Europe, AGC represents around 15,000 employees over ~100 industrial sites and the Technovation Centre is at the heart of AGC’s technological know-how in Europe.

It is a transversal department aiming at creating additional value for the company – we now summarise this with ‘Quick Innovation with a Purpose’. This can only be reached if we deeply collaborate with the operational business units and become part of the complete architectural glass and automotive glass integrated value chain.

The responsibilities of AGC’s Technovation Centre are spread across four areas:

1. Technology, mainly focused on the engineering part of our processes. One of our goals is to support our plants across the company, mainly for the cold repairs of our float glass furnaces. We also want to create the manufacturing process of the future by reducing our direct greenhouse gas emissions. Driven by sustainability, we want to shape the glass melting process of the future and be the leader in our industry in the transformation of technologies.

2. Innovation, the research and development part of our business. It’s a subtle balance between two approaches: ‘Grow & Sustain’ on the side of our core business and ‘Innovate’ on the side of products, processes and new business models. Both require different but complementary skills. In ‘Grow & Sustain’, we need a deep expertise and the timing constraint is key. The goal here is to create additional value for the core business. For ‘Innovate’, we focus on creativity, combination/hybridisation with new or existing products and of course, on the conversion rate of those new ideas in tangible assets. The goal here is to create new value for the company.

3. New Business, the incubation department to test new ideas. Our goal is to manage a portfolio of potential new business projects. The process consists of screening all potential ideas and evaluating their value for AGC. When positive, we move to the incubation phase to quickly test those ideas on the market. This can result in failure but if so, we believe in fail fast processes. Once profitable, reliable and scalable, the goal is to transfer those new businesses to the operational business units of the group.

4. Intellectual Property, to protect AGC’s intellectual assets. The Intellectual Property team helps the Technovation Centre through the technology scouting (scientific and patent literature). The freedom to operate all the developments is followed closely. Patent applications, about 40–60 per year (!), are filed to defend our innovation and to build our competitive advantage. Patent prosecution, oppositions and appeals help to build our patent portfolio, and in/out-licensing is one of the key valuations of the IP activity.

GW: When was the Technovation Centre launched and how was innovation coordinated before it opened?

The ATC building opened in 2012. Before that time R&D activities and Engineering were scattered across different sites. The previous R&D site was also located in Belgium but could no longer handle the growing demand for additional product and process developments. We took advantage of the needed change to create synergies with departments on a critical mission to prepare for our future: R&D, Engineering, Intellectual Property and since 2020, the New Business Developments.

GW: How has the facility developed over the years?

ATC has always been a centre of expertise for AGC’s core business. Over the past few years many functionalities have been added to glass, which is increasingly green and connected. We combine glass with light, electronics, antennas; we create active glass for specific surface treatments; we provide Coating on Demand for iconic facade projects; we are active in optical simulation with real rendering software; a lot of ‘out of glass’ competences have now been integrated in the glass but also in the Technovation Centre.

On the automotive side, we are developing new technologies for embedding invisible antennas into glass, for mounting lidars [detection system that works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser] on autonomous vehicles’ windscreens to display information in augmented reality at eye level. To contribute to the ecological footprint of the electric car, we are developing glasses offering optimal thermal performance, photovoltaic roofs to improve battery life, but also ‘green’ encapsulations.

On the building side, we want glass to play a central part in tomorrow’s smart and sustainable cities. We develop vacuum insulated glazing for optimal light and thermal comfort, a double paned unit inside the thickness of a single glazing and we offer connectivity solutions through glazing to promote or block the use of mobile phones.

Over the past 10 years, we have been able to transform and enhance our competences in those new fields while maintaining our strong expertise in core glass products and processes. We have invested in one of the biggest state of the art anechoic [echo-free] chambers in Europe, where we provide highly accurate measurements, complete raw data and detailed reporting of electromagnetic fields for the antenna business in the automotive but also in the architectural sector.

GW: How many people work in the centre and what levels of expertise are employed?

There are around 300 people working at ATC. Two thirds of them are researchers with a very good scientific background. Most of our researchers are engineers with materials science, chemistry or mechanical backgrounds but the proportion of other specialities such as electronics, telecom, computer, data science is constantly increasing. Recently we have also been hiring product designers, business developers and architects to broaden the scope of our competences.

Our researchers are supported by 100 technicians – also with scientific backgrounds – to work on realising experiments, measurements and develop competences in new business fields.

Diversity and inclusion is one of the main drivers of AGC’s Corporate Social Responsibility at AGC. The ATC is also leading the way here. We have more than 22 different nationalities in our centre and some of them are from outside Europe. Gender diversity is also well in place in our facility, with women well represented also in management positions.

GW: How does the Technovation Centre prioritise resources between products and processes?

It is not a simple choice between products or processes. The main starting point should be the driver. On the one hand, with the current strategic issues of sustainability and greenhouse gas reduction, we will certainly focus on the process over the next few years. The glass manufacturing industry is undergoing a major change and we want to lead that change. On the other hand, glass products, and especially flat glass, will play a dominant role in energy savings or energy production in the construction and architectural sectors. Each square metre of glass that we produce helps to save nine times the CO2 emitted during its fabrication. Rather than choosing between process or product, we prioritise the projects where we can make a difference and be the leader of the sector.

GW: Considering AGC’s global operations, how are activities at the Centre co-ordinated across the group?

The Technovation Centre is indeed part of AGC’s worldwide R&D network and one of the main centres with partner sites in America and in Japan. Collaboration between regions is essential to AGC’s R&D efficiency and strength. Each of the regions focuses on a specific expertise. Japan’s sites focus on automotive and non-glass businesses. For Europe it is flat glass for architectural applications with two antenna sites for coating equipment (Lauenförde, Germany) and pre-industrialisation of automotive glass (Aniche, France).

GW: How much does AGC invest annually in the Technovation Centre?

The budget allocated to R&D is significant. We have always invested substantial resources but now with our vision for developing new technologies and the evolution towards carbon-free [manufacture] we will be investing unprecedented amounts of resources for this challenge.

GW: What future developments are planned for the Technovation Centre?

Sustainability will lead the way in our business transformation. Major developments will focus on the reduction of direct greenhouse gas emissions. Basically, we have less than 10 years to completely reshape the way we melt glass. Our melting process is an optimisation of the Siemens-Martin process from 1856! We have been improving this process for over 150 years and have reached the limit of its capabilities.

The time has come to re-think this process and to test breakthrough technologies in order to achieve float glass production without CO2. The role of ATC is to provide solutions for new combustion methods, new technologies and new furnace designs. We also have to support the business in developing new processes such as CO2 capture, optimising new raw materials or creating new business models to increase our capacity to recycle cullet.

In the flat glass business, AGC aims to lead the way for a better world.

 
Image: Nicolas Fedullo and AGC’s Technovation Centre.