Since its foundation in 2000, as a spin-off from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, XPAR Vision has been a market leader in solutions for hot end inspection and forming process monitoring & control in the global container glass industry. The company started with one (infrared) sensor, and now offers sensors in the fields of gob cutting, gob loading and container forming, along with its “revolutionary” BlankRobot – XPAR Vision’s solution for automating multiple tasks at the blank side.
Over the past few years and based on many requests from container glass manufacturers, XPAR Vision strategically reviewed its position, resulting in a sharp focus on the full automation of the container glass forming process, and strengthening its organisation to achieve this. During the last 16 months and despite Covid and other factors changing the playing field, more than 25 new staff have been hired. Nowadays XPAR Vision consists of more than 55 high level and experienced individuals of seven nationalities, all dedicated to automating container glass forming and making glass packaging more sustainable.
Industry challenges
The container glass industry faces major challenges, the main one being workforce: experienced staff are fading out quickly and it is more and more difficult to recruit new employees. Knowing that, how will a glass plant be operating five years from now?
Other challenges are increasing energy prices and the pressure from customers and consumers to lower the carbon footprint of glass packaging and make it more sustainable. Higher efficiency levels, lower weights and higher speed of production are the answer to these challenges. And last but not least, the increasing demand for more complex containers in smaller runs, and the stricter requirements for a healthy and safe work environment.
The answer: automation
XPAR Vision believes that a fully automated but supervised container glass forming process is the answer to all of these challenges. The more automation, the higher the level of forming process control, the fewer defects produced and less dependency on people [operators]. The higher the level of forming process control, the less variation in glass wall thickness and the higher the potential for weight reduction. And the lower the weight of the containers, the higher the speed of production can be.
With this as a starting point, XPAR Vision realised it needed to speed up. Being market leader in the field of sensor technology and its application in the forming process, the company feels a responsibility to accelerate developments in the direction of full automation: improving current sensors, extending the portfolio of sensors, fine tuning the BlankRobot and investing seriously in data-science and artificial intelligence. Above all, XPAR Vision listens to its customers and lets them guide the company’s efforts into the desired developments.
Unique set-up
XPAR Vision currently consists of a team of business developers, field service engineers, consultants and developers. The business developers, all of whom have extensive industry experience, are wthe main intermediates to customers. XPAR Vision’s consultants actively assist customers with the most effective application of the company’s technology, with training, guidance and advice.
All consultants have a background in container glass forming and collectively the XPAR Vision’s business developers and consultants have more than 200 years of glass forming experience between them. The company’s field service engineers are primarily dedicated to technical installations on customers’ shopfloors. When they are not travelling, they are the first point of contact for any customer support request. The developers, who make up 50% of the XPAR staff, consist of researchers, software developers, data-scientists and UI developers. They all have PhDs, MScs or BScs in the fields of (Theoretical, Technical, Applied and/or Experimental) Physics, Artificial Intelligence, Theoretical Chemistry, Computing Science, Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology, Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Sensor System Engineering.
Team (up)
Naturally, the value of all these individuals in one company comes from the team. In order to focus on working as a team, XPAR Vision organised a four-day company meeting at the end of June with the main purpose of getting staff to know each other and creating alignment on the company and products. In addition, with all employees and through cross-functional teams, XPAR focused on upcoming challenges and created roadmaps for how to deal with them.
The company extends this team spirit to its customers. More and more clients are teaming up with XPAR Vision to work on the front end of knowledges and best practice. From this team spirit XPAR Vision believes that together with its customers, it will contribute to an improved glass container forming process and a better world. And of course, have some fun at the same time.
Image: The XPAR Vision team currently consists of more than 55 experienced employees representing seven nationalities.