University of Liverpool/NSG Float Glass Energy Efficiency Project Wins Award
Dr. Peter Green of University of Liverpool has won the award for Best Transforming Foundation Industries Network+ (TFIN+) project for 'Improved energy efficiency of float glass production' in collaboration with NSG Group. The award was sponsored by IOM3 (Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining) and presented by David Arthur FIMMM.
The project involved the development and deployment of a machine learning model which, having been trained on data gathered from 100s of sensors at the UK5 float glass plant in St Helens, was used to predict variations in product quality up to 72 hours into the future. The overall model was formulated using a Gaussian ‘product of experts’ approach, whereby separate models are each used to cover different regions of the input space before predictions are formulated using a weighted product of all models.
The model is able to function in an online setting (allowing it to be updated using the most recent data from the UK5 plant). The model can be used to form different decision support tools to help increase the efficiency of float glass production. The approach is scalable to large datasets and it can be extended to other float glass furnaces. NSG directly funded another six months of research which has already been transferred into the Manufacturing Execution System used at the plant.
