Glass Industry News

Lightweighting: a journey at the cutting edge of the glassmaker’s art

, Clarity / Consol Glass CLAYVILLE PLANT

Lighter bottles have compelling benefits: they require less raw material and energy, which means lower costs throughout the value chain and a lower carbon footprint.

It takes time and effort to develop the skills, people and technology needed to excel in the field, but over the last two decades lightweighting has become one of Consol’s core competencies, a key competitive advantage and a point of considerable pride in the company.

Consol’s lightweighting journey began in the late 1990s when South Africa’s markets opened to the rest of the world and industries were pressured to innovate quickly to catch up. Beer brands were some of the first to see the potential of lightweighting to reduce costs and differentiate their products, and collaborations between Consol and SAB, and later Consol and Heineken, introduced best-in-class designs to their markets.

A breakthrough in Consol’s lightweighting journey occurred when a new bottle-forming process – the narrow-neck press-blow (NNPB) method – was trialled at Consol’s Clayville plant in the late 1990s.

NNPB has considerable advantages when your goal is to use less material while retaining exceptional control over the final product. But this control comes at a price, namely the requirement for astonishingly tight tolerances in the process. To get the desired results, for example, the level of molten glass in the vast furnaces that feed the forming machines can’t deviate by more than half a millimetre. The temperature of the molten glass supplied to the forming machine, typically around 1 200°C, can’t vary by more than a degree.

Seventy-two different moulds running across the glass-forming machine have to be meticulously aligned and maintained to precisely match so that each bottle manufactured meets the very tight specification tolerances. And because glassmaking is a non-stop process, these tolerances need to be achieved 24/7, 365 days a year, for the lifetime of the machinery.

This requires exceptional technological and human skills that are key competencies for Consol.

As a result of the fearful learning curve involved in this new technology, the introduction of NNPB was, in the words of Paul Curnow, Consol’s Deputy CEO, “fairly traumatic in the early days”. Those tasked with the project made immense personal sacrifices to see it through to fruition. By the mid-2000s, however, it had become routine for Consol’s smaller volume (340 ml range) beer bottles to be made in NNPB, and by the early 2010s the process had been rolled out to larger volumetric sizes (650 ml and 750 ml ranges) and then to wine and spirit bottles. Today Consol is one of the best exponents of the NNPB art in our markets.

Alongside technical skill and rigorous processes, collaboration is key to a successful lightweighting project. It is a deeply interactive process that might begin with Consol’s analysis of market conditions and trends suggesting a new design to a customer, or with a customer coming to Consol with a request to determine what’s possible within a certain shape. Designs are drawn up, debated, and sent for stress analyses. Eventually a small trial run of physical samples will be produced, followed by a run of several thousand samples which can be tested for packing and transport.

The testing at every stage is exceptionally rigorous. It has to be: there’s a lot at stake when designing a lighter bottle. Absolute control over bottle strength and quality must be assured. Most bottles carry products with carbonation, and their safety needs to be guaranteed until they are eventually recycled.

What is it about Consol that allowed it to overcome the challenges lightweighting posed to become one of the world’s few manufacturers at the forefront of the art? For Curnow, it was an unremitting commitment to excellence. “On the one hand, there was the sense that if we didn’t learn how to do it first someone else would and we’d lose our edge and our jobs. If our jobs are difficult we have a much better chance of keeping them! ” he explains. “But there’s also a certain mindset prevalent in the organisation that is excited by the challenge, by the continuous improvement of processes, and by becoming globally competitive at a very difficult task. We want to be better than our competitors, and we’re willing to do what’s necessary to achieve that.”

, © Clarity / Consol Glass CLAYVILLE PLANT

Les informations publiées sur notre portail sont soumises au droit d´auteur et appartiennent à la société en question resp. à la source des nouvelles. Tous les droits sont réservés expressément. N´importe quel utilisateur qui accède à un tel matériel peut faire ainsi seulement pour sa propre utilisation personnelle, et l´usage d´un tel matériel est au risque unique de l´utilisateur. La redistribution ou toute autre exploitation commerciale d´un tel matériel de nouvelles est expressément interdite. Là où un tel matériel de nouvelles est fourni par un tiers, chaque utilisateur accepte d´observer et être lié par les limites spécifiques de l´utilisation s´appliquant à un tel matériel de nouvelles. Glass Global ne représente ou n´approuve pas l´exactitude ou la fiabilité d´aucune des informations citées dans les nouvelles ou pages externes auxquelles on se réfère ici.

Should the content or the design of these sites violate third parties rights or legal prescriptions, we kindly ask you to send us a respective message without invoice or cost. We guarantee that passages where the claim is considered as justified will be removed immediately, without any necessity to involve any lawyer into this issue. We will reject any claim caused by submission of a honorary note in this regard without any prior contact and confirmation of the issueby us and we reserve the right ssue counter claim ourselves because of violation of aforesaid conditions.



Info Grid

Glass studies

Updated worldwide glass study 2024

plants.glassglobal.com

Updated hollow glass study 2024

Request more information

Updated float glass study 2024

Request more information

Further glass market studies

Request more information

Portrait de la société



Updated worldwide glass market study 2024 available now for flat, container glass and tableware

We have updated our international studies on flat glass, container glass and tableware for 2024.

This unique software provides a global overview about glass producers and technical details. Easy to use and clear tables summarize information and data about glass makers such as: Glass types: flat glass, container glass, tableware, production capacities in regions and countries, number of furnaces, furnace types, year of construction, glass types and sub-types, products, project information, special news and downloads.

Further databases supplying demoscopic data and import and export data complete the market survey. Based on these data, prepare individual country profiles with information about local production capacities, local market sizes and expected demand in the future.

Request your offer via plants.glassglobal.com.

Updated container glass study 2024

X

Updated float glass study 2024

X

Further glass studies and reports 2024

X