Exclusive Guardian interview

A year on from the furnace rebuild at Guardian Glass’ UK facility in Goole, East Yorkshire, Glass Worldwide met with Plant Manager Chris Duguid to discuss the float glass factory’s enhanced production capabilities and understand some of the thinking behind the investment strategy that underpins the plant’s upgrades and secures its future in the ever-evolving glass industry. The full version of this article appears in the March/April 2023 issue that has been mailed globally and is also now available free of charge in the digital archive*.

A self-described electrical engineer by trade, Chris Duguid went into manufacturing and joined Guardian as a Shift Manager when the American-headquartered float glass company built a UK factory in Goole, Yorkshire, in 2003. “I ran a shift for a few years, then I was Engineering Manager, and then I moved into Production Manager roles and Operations Manager and then Plant Manager,” he explains.

Operating across five continents and serving over 160 countries, Guardian Glass – which is owned by Koch Industries, one of the largest private companies in North America – rolls out approximately 500km of float glass each day from 24 lines worldwide. The sole UK facility, Guardian Goole produces float, coated and laminated glass product ranges and liaises frequently with its sister plants around the globe. These include the Luxembourg facilities where Mr Duguid worked from 2009 to 2013 – “it was a chance to experience different cultures and different areas of manufacturing – an ‘adventure’ to some extent,” he recalls, remarking on how “the factories are very similar within Guardian – some are almost carbon copies.”

International communication between plants is maintained by a digital platform many of us turned to in 2020. “It’s changed a bit of how we work,” notes Mr Duguid. “There are people who can now work from home, remotely. It tends to be more support people; plant-wise, people work from the plant, but if you’re scheduling production, you can do that remotely.”

It also aids communication with Guardian’s experts in different parts of the process at Goole or the technologies used at the plant. “They can be all over the world but we meet them on Teams very easily,” says Mr Duguid. “The only problem is you can’t change the time difference. When we meet with the Thailand team there’s a fairly short time window. I was on a call with them recently and the sun’s shining and the palm trees are swaying…” he laughs ruefully and gestures to the somewhat bleaker Yorkshire view this time of year.

Making it work

A working day at Goole always starts with a morning (GMT) meeting between Chris and representatives from all of the plant (the operations team, shift managers, engineers).

“We talk about what’s happened in the plant in the last 24 hours, what we’re doing in the next 24 hours,” he explains. “And always a nice bit of that is when I’m surprised – by something somebody’s done or a team has done. I’ve been in glassmaking for 19 years so I’ve seen a lot of things but there’s still things people do that surprise me in a positive way. That’s the bit where I think ‘Wow, that’s great!’” he enthuses.

“We’re very people-focused – I think in all manufacturing you’ve got to be people-focused,” he muses. “You don’t have to have glass experience to work here. We’ll take you – as long as you’ve got the right approach to work; want to contribute, and want to be part of what we’re trying to do."

“I think there are fewer and fewer people wanting to get into engineering or heavy manufacturing but as an industry going through transformation, we want to become more attractive to school-leavers and recent university graduates, and when you see what we’re working with here and all the technology we’re using… people have all sorts of images of what a glass factory might look like, and it’s rarely like that.”

Typically, there are around 240 employees attached to Guardian Goole but this number fluctuates due to roaming global specialists, employees who work for Guardian in other roles, and the daily shift system. The core of the factory is sustained by the “40-odd people here running the plant at any one time, and then there’s about 60/70 people who are the support functions like myself,” says Mr Duguid. “The guys out there run the plant and make it work – they’re out there taking the decisions day-to-day on what they need to do – and I’m trying to help them and give them what they need to do the best job."

“My role is to connect my team with people who can help them, whether that be an external company or another person in Guardian – in India, or Guardian in the States; that’s a big part of my role. And shining the light and shifting the focus at certain times to get the best out of the business. I’m trying to look at what’s coming and to prepare us for the future, quite a long way out – whether it be hydrogen – how hydrogen’s developing in the UK – but also next month; the next six months; next year. Clearly it didn’t take a genius to work out energy is going to be a big issue this year. So [I’m] focusing the teams on how we use energy and how we need to take care of our use of that resource.”

Suspecting modesty regarding the sheer weight of responsibility borne by a plant manager, it takes a more direct line of questioning but eventually Mr Duguid is gracious enough to spell it out: “Anything that we want to do here, I have to sponsor. I have to make sure that if we’re spending money, I realise the bet that we have for that investment – so if we’re going to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to invest in this; it’s going to improve the process by this…’, I have to make sure that happens and my team here will execute the investment, then will make it work and realise what we’re trying to do."

“We’re privately-owned, so, essentially, we’re able to do what we think is right in the long term,” he observes. “We’re not beholden to this year’s results, so we can make good decisions for the long term of the business rather than just, ‘Okay, we’ll do this now so we get a good result this year.’ As a business we have a good set of visions of where we want to be, and everybody is supportive and works together as a team.”

Major investment

Assuming the position of Plant Manager at Goole in 2018, Chris was central to the cold tank repair to rebuild the furnace that took place during April–October 2021. Beyond the fact that, at 19 years old, the existing furnace was coming to the end of its lifespan, the plant upgrade was motivated by Guardian’s confidence in the UK and Ireland market over the next 15–20 years. The vast majority of glass currently produced by Guardian Goole stays in the UK and Ireland. “We believe there’s growth there, for a whole number of reasons, and we want to commit into that, so we expanded the whole capacity of the plant [by 20%, increasing melting capacity to 825tpd], with a view on the future,” Mr Duguid elaborates.

“Because you’re making this investment for 15–20 years: you’ve got to have a view of what you want to do. There’s a whole industry that we’re supplying – many people work in the glass industry, whether that be from fitting conservatories to making double glazing units or furniture… We believe in local manufacturing where possible and we want to service that.”

Choosing suppliers for a major rebuild is clearly crucial to its success and Guardian can afford to be selective. Mr Duguid explains the process: “It is about where you want to put your money. You can’t buy everything. (Well you could, but you probably wouldn’t do well in business!) We want to pick the best technologies… it’s picking the right one for you but also picking the one that you think is going to do the job and will make a difference for you, and I think that’s where we differ.”

With factories all over the world, Guardian looks for technology that can be scaled quickly. “E.g., ‘Can you supply me 25 of these and fit them over the next two years?’ For some suppliers that’s a challenge,” says Mr Duguid. “We’re trying to pick ‘winners’ – some of the conditions are pretty demanding: the cameras we use to look into the furnace – it’s thousands of degrees in there, so how reliable are they?”

Guardian’s own technical know-how during the planning and implementation of the investment is “critical”, he adds.

“We use different contractors and suppliers for different parts of the line. So how those partners come together, how we interface those… There’s a fair degree of flexibility in how things work as well, and we use our expertise in working with the suppliers and say ‘We’d like it to work like this, and we want it to do that, and this is the function we want’ – a lot of suppliers can’t accommodate those things. That’s where you can make a difference: in how you customise these technologies to fit what you’re after. That’s where our knowledge comes into play.”

Energy efficiency and future-proofing

Guardian has a reputation for maintaining pristine premises and a high standard of housekeeping and this is evident at Goole, where the factory floor is spick and span, the metalwork still looks fresh and the whole facility has a feel of measured professionalism. Disappointingly, on a particularly cold winter morning, the hot end isn’t even that warm.

“Before [the rebuild] you’d be sweating!” laughs Mr Duguid. “We’ve invested a lot in insulating the furnace. And selection of the refractories and different technologies and designs and burners and stuff like that. There’s all sorts of things that go into that.”

Utilising a recuperative furnace design, the thermal regeneration system at Goole (which cogenerates electricity from the heat of the exhaust gases at the plant’s furnace stack) is aided by entirely upgraded refractory technology. The new, more energy-efficient furnace has reduced the plant’s carbon intensity (tons of CO2 per pull ton) by approximately 15%.

While an impressive 400m long ribbon of 3mm glass is being formed, a tour of the Control Room reveals that Guardian has also implemented advanced process control to further refine its glassmaking and save energy. The extra sensors and monitoring that Goole’s control engineers and process engineers fine-tuned with the vendor have facilitated an even greater degree of accuracy and optimisation. “The more efficient we can be in producing the packs of glass we do,” Mr Duguid explains, “the more energy we save – we’re not having to re-make glass if we can get it [right] the first time, so that’s where we’re putting a lot of our effort.”

Further energy savings have been achieved by reducing the facility’s previously “very high” lighting levels. Guardian Goole removed around 30% of the LED lights that were initially installed “years ago” for their efficiency. It must have been dazzlingly bright before because the line still seems well-lit in all the necessary places, aided by the daylight filtering in from airy skylights. “We’ve adjusted to be at the right level,” confirms Mr Duguid.

“We’ve focused heavily on reducing our energy consumption and increasing capacity,” he continues. “It is really making an asset that’s ready for the future. Where we have rebuilt, we’ve tried to make it future-ready, so if in the next 15–20-year period new technologies come along, which I think there will be, we can easily incorporate them into the furnace or the process. There’s some decisions you can make about space, for example. [To this end the Goole rebuild included a 6m expansion at the back of the factory.] Or putting in enough electrical capacity in case we want to use electricity in the future in lieu of current fuels for melting or whatever – those type of things.”

Modernising premises, practices and services

Prominent, even in the factory’s new mood lighting, are QR code labels that appear on many pieces of equipment. This is a new practice introduced at Goole in 2022 and rolled out throughout the business as an updated method of identifying a piece of equipment or a component that requires servicing or maintenance. “We’re QR coding around the plant to make things easy,” says Mr Duguid. “We’re moving away from pieces of paper to tablets throughout the operation.”

Remote monitoring by specialists is in operation for critical pieces of equipment and AI is employed in certain instances – “There’s not loads currently, but it’s coming,” forecasts Mr Duguid. “You can see that as something in the future for specific control loops."

“The thought of automated vehicles driving round with huge amounts of glass on was once unthinkable,” he continues, “[but] I think there is more and more technology coming into play. Will it be there by the time I retire? I don’t know, but it’s coming!”

Another aspect of modernisation is Guardian’s new Resource Hub, launched last October, which offers a range of tools and resources for customers and the wider glass community. Designed to streamline communications and processes, the Customer Ordering Portal allows customers to check product availability, place an order, check its status, raise requests, obtain a quote and order samples at any time. Phoning up is no longer necessary: “Customers can go online and build (‘fill’) a truck themselves; they can modify their orders and communicate with us electronically – that’s available 24/7,” outlines Mr Duguid.

In addition, there is a new online Training Centre – a digital learning platform offering video-based tutorials, accredited modules, live webinars and in-person sessions that can be booked online.

“Customers can go there [the Hub] and learn a bit about glass, but also specify products for certain acoustic properties or solar properties. We’re putting a lot of work into [making] the customer experience more relevant for today, and easy for customers to access,” states Mr Duguid.

Environmental stewardship

As one of the founding partners of Glass Futures, a UK-based research and technology organisation backed by the global glass industry that’s building a Pilot Plant in St Helens to serve as a Global Centre of Excellence for sustainable glass-making, Guardian Glass is dedicated to finding innovative and transformative ways to manufacture glass whilst using fewer resources, minimising waste, and improving the environmental performance and effectiveness of its products and processes. “It’s something we’re quite excited about,” reveals Mr Duguid. “To experiment on things here is a bit of a risk because we’ve got a huge line – a valuable asset. To say ‘Right, we want to do this funky experiment to try different fuel, or to change this or this’ – the risks are quite high in terms of production. Well, the beauty of Glass Futures and why we invested with the other partners is that you can go and try these things with very low risk. And then scale up the experiment to conduct a controlled experiment on a full-size line.”

For example, the development of alternative fuel technologies – such as hydrogen, biofuels, hybrid fuels and electric power as potential lower-carbon fuel alternatives.

“It’s something we follow…” responds Mr Duguid. “And this is the same thing: in a lab you can melt glass with hydrogen. But what’s the long-term effect on the refractories in the furnace? You might be able to do it for a week or a month [but] in a year, is your furnace going to collapse because the atmosphere is slightly different? And also can you get the right quality of glass off high pull rates? The volume of hydrogen [for firing] isn’t available at the moment… The National Grid is working on a hydrogen network for the future – we’re monitoring this closely, so we’ll see where we go."

“We’ve got to be good stewards of all the resources for which we’re responsible,” he underlines. “We’ve got to make sure we make best use of everything we’re using, whether it be energy or raw materials. I think environmental issues and business issues can work together to some extent, because if you’re being efficient, it’s better for the environment. We certainly want to do everything we can and more to be ready for the future. Our customers are demanding of that, whether it be architects, building designers – they’re driven by that as well.”

Responding to changes to UK Building Regulations regarding greater fabric performance and reduced energy demand that came into force on 15 June 2022, Guardian developed a new product specifically to support the Part L (‘Conservation of Fuel and Power’) conditions for cutting carbon emissions from new homes by around 30%. ClimaGuard Neutral 1.0 is a thermal insulating coated glass for double-glazed windows that has a Ug-value of 1.0W/m2K (complying with Part L’s updated Notional U-value Target: 1.2W/m2K and U-value / Maximum: 1.6W/m2K) and offers a high level of energy performance along with a colour-neutral appearance and low light reflection for clear views. The glass can be used in its annealed form or heat-treated for safety applications.

“There’s an opportunity for buildings to become more energy-efficient but it could require an upgrade in the glazing,” observes Mr Duguid. “Glass products over the last 10 years have improved massively but we’re often very reluctant to change our windows. It’s a big capital expense for people. But there is an opportunity to reduce a building’s energy consumption – thus helping to lower the energy bill – and operational carbon, and to improve the occupant’s comfort by upgrading the windows in our homes.”

Made in England

So four years into the job, how does Chris feel about heading things up at Goole? “No regrets! I think that everything’s running really well. There is no doubt the market’s difficult at the moment with pressures on energy prices and inflation and things like that. We still have imports coming into the country and a lot of it’s driven by lower energy prices. But they’re typically commodity products [with] longer lead times."

“Manufacturing in the UK can have cost disadvantages compared with other parts of the world,” he concedes.

“But the difference is we’re here; we’re next to the customers; we supply everything the customers need. You don’t get the transport ‘waste’, of bringing in glass from another country, where you’ve got all the additional fuel consumption and associated carbon emissions, which people always forget about. The products are made here, and the big element is the service part of the business. The products are all fantastic and perform very well. You can have [your order] the next day from here – we’ve got customers up towards Aberdeen and customers in Dorset and we can cover the country in that time. You can also have different combinations of products on a truck, whereas if you’re buying from the Middle East somewhere, you’re buying a container – it will be all one product, which is fine if you’re using a lot, but [Goole’s] flexibility and responsiveness, I think, is key."

“We can be competitive; we’ve got to be very good, let’s be clear, and we’ve got to invest in technology to help us.”

Investment in people also seems to pay off at Goole, given the timing of the rebuild could scarcely have been worse, from a global pandemic point of view… “We’d come out of that first wave [of Covid] and then we had all the supply issues where containers were in the wrong place,” remembers Mr Duguid, grimacing. “And then the ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal… We had some bricks stuck in the queue of that at the time. There was also that chip shortage – they go into a lot of the control equipment that we use. So there were all those disruptions and a lot of work to re-route things here. Then there’s the Covid aspect; we had about 500 contractors on site at one point…”

All socially distanced?

“You should have seen it out there! So there were big challenges and added complexity and added costs. And then we went through the rebuild of the plant, so I’m particularly proud when I think about the people that work here, and everybody who navigated the way through that.”

And now?

“We’re just looking forward to the future. It’s one year down… I enjoy my job,” Mr Duguid smiles. “It’s the company I’ve worked for the longest and there’s never a dull moment; there’s always something new and interesting… I think glass gets under your skin a little bit; it’s an interesting industry and the products are fascinating. Everyone loves glass but you take it for granted a lot of the time.”

ClimaGuard is a registered trademark of Guardian Industries

Further Information:

Guardian Glass Goole, UK
tel: +44 1405 726800
email: uksales@guardian.com
web: www.guardianglass.co.uk

* The full version of this article appears in the March/April issue that has been mailed globally. The digital version of this issue can also currently be read free of charge in its entirety in the Digital Archive (sponsored by FIC) of over 60 issues of Glass Worldwide at https://www.glassworldwide.co.uk/Digital-Issues. To receive the paper copy, all future issues and a free copy of the Who’s Who / Annual Review yearbook, subscribe now at https://www.glassworldwide.co.uk/subscription-choice

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Exclusive Guardian interview