I have had in mind to write up some memoirs on the topic of glass conditioning into short articles. The intention is to communicate my memories and give readers the benefit of receiving the main lessons I learnt along the way. These may be of help to you either immediately or at some point in the future.

After working in the glass container industry for many years, as a long-term employee of a company with several UK glass factories, I have come to experience a variety of situations in glass conditioning that have given me lifelong industry lessons. Later, as an employee of various glass companies for many years, it was not [previously] easily possible to share such experiences – this was due to potential conflict with other competing manufacturers. However, now that I am working as independent consultant to the glass container industry, I am free to share my thoughts.

For me, glass conditioning is one of those often-neglected areas that can significantly affect the performance of a glass container production line, or any other form of glass production for that matter. However, as I speak here, I speak specifically from the point of view of glass container production. You can adapt what I say if you work in other areas of glass production.

You will be pleased to hear that I am not talking about the details of any particular proprietary glass container forehearths and feeders. Although, I have worked with many different kinds of glass conditioning systems used in the glass industry. I am talking about general principles that you could apply to any item of proprietary equipment which you may have.

Working at Redfearn

Now, for my first memoir, I go back almost as far as I can remember in glass. I was working at Redfearn National Glass in Monk Bretton, Barnsley. This plant is currently part of Ardagh and is known as the Ardagh Barnsley Plant. Having returned to the plant in recent years whilst working for Ardagh, I can tell you the most significant change to the appearance of the plant is the change of name. Most of the layout of the plant is similar (just higher-productivity IS machines, resulting in fewer production lines).

At that time, I was selected to be taken from my job as an electrician and be released full-time to attend Sheffield City Polytechnic (Sheffield Hallam University as it is known now). The topic I chose to study was Electronic Systems & Control Engineering, leading to a Bachelor of Engineering Degree. That was way back in 1984. This is when my interest in process control started – in particular, process control in the glass industry.

Advanced academia

During my studies, for university holiday periods, I was assigned to the Production Development Department as it was known then. Right now, it is the offices of the hot end production team at Barnsley, which is totally operationally focussed. In those days, when I was assigned to the department, it was a more about testing new technologies and ideas, although there was a strong cross over to daily production activities.

In that department, I was introduced to a very bright person by the name of Charles A.F. Brown, he was studying for a Master of Philosophy degree, as I recall. A major part of his study work was to develop a model-based predictive control for glass forehearths. He also published papers about it in the Society of Glass Technology periodical. A copy of which I later found in the archives of Owens-Illinois Technical Centre in Perrysburg, Ohio. It had been used as a reference source for some of their work on their Melter & Conditioning System (MCS) development. That could form part of a story of another memoir, but for now I will return to the main topic.

‘Charlie’, as everyone knew him by (nothing to do with the cartoon character, I am sure!), was on a different planet in terms of thinking to most people. I was too young in my control theory studies to be able to follow the mathematical equations he was developing by using digital control theory to create the predictive control models. All I remember was a lot of triplex thermocouples being installed in forehearths with a lot of wires, used to access the data he needed to work on his development efforts with.

Forehearth control

More on my academic level at the time was a gentleman called Geoff Wray, who is long since retired. He also co-published papers on glass conditioning in the Society of Glass Technology periodical. Geoff was, however, more of a practical than theoretical person. I therefore gravitated towards his side of forehearth control involvement, and moved away from the theoretical work which Charlie was doing.

Geoff had a full-time job in working on the forehearths. At that time, I recall maybe 13 or 14 production lines at the Barnsley plant, meaning a lot of forehearths to look after, which perhaps justified his role. That was something he told me about often, as we went around checking on the set-up of each forehearth. And herein lies the lesson and opportunity.

Geoff kept details of working-end and forehearth gas usages and clearly knew how much of the reduction in usage was due to his daily fine-tuning work on the forehearths. He was very proud to tell me (on many occasions) that he actually cost the company nothing because his wages were more than covered by the savings in energy costs over a year. In addition to the savings made, however, the result was better and more stable glass conditioning. Geoff could demonstrate this because he recorded the nine-point grid of thermocouple readings in the conditioning section of every forehearth channel in the plant.

Importance of glass conditioning

However, it is very likely that Geoff contributed way more from better production performances than he ever saved from the energy savings. This was arising from the glass conditioning set-up and stability focus he applied daily. That improvement in production performances is much harder – perhaps impossible – to measure, due to many other influencing factors affecting production output. But the lesson was clear to me: a glass plant will benefit significantly if it has a good focus on the area of glass conditioning.

That focus might not be a full-time job for one person in smaller plants, but even a part-time role will benefit by delivering reduced energy costs and improved production performances. The problem I have seen regarding this in many plants is the knowledge and experience gap to be able to provide this input. The easy alternative is to largely ignore forehearth set-ups and only attend to matters when production is being adversely affected.

In conclusion, you should really give serious attention to the area of glass conditioning. Know that by NOT giving daily attention to your glass conditioning setup, money WILL leave the company in the form of higher energy costs and reduced production performances. This adversely affects the profitability of the plant. Even though it might not be easy to see, it is very real, at least you can now see my experience tells me so.

If you feel you need professional help in this area, please don’t hesitate to contact me to discuss your needs further. If it is something I can’t help you with directly, I have a network of people highly experienced in the industry, who I can refer you to.

I do hope you enjoyed reading this short memoir of mine. More importantly, I trust that if you take this lesson to heart, you will take action, where action is needed.