Bottero and Tiama are pleased to announce the creation of an independent company called GlassFORM.ai based in Rovereto, Trento, Italy, with the goal to develop solutions for process automation.
This joint venture is the next step of the strategic plan of the two companies, which have been cooperating for several years, finding an ideal fit between Bottero’s process knowledge and Tiama’s sensor expertise.
Today’s glass market is increasingly driven by the need for higher production efficiency, reduced environmental impact and increased overall safety for operators. In this scenario, know-how is becoming a challenge: the industry is losing experienced people while new technologies require the development of specific competencies.
Bottero and Tiama believe that automation built on data processing is the key to answer to such emerging needs. In this new, highly demanding context, GlassFORM.ai will:
- provide solutions to automatically manage the forming process according to production targets
- contain environmental impacts through energy saving, light weighing and re-source optimization
- reduce exposure of operators to machine adjustments via automatic controls
- compensate the loss in process know-how leveraged by the deployment of Artificial Intelligence technologies
The strong connections with Trentino Sviluppo (the agency of Provincia Autonoma di Trento devoted to promote a sustainable development in Trentino area) and the Digital Industry Center of FBK (Fondazione Bruno Kessler – a top Research Institute active in the fields of scientific, technological and human sciences) in the framework of the “Manifattura Project,” are a plus for establishing stable relationships with local industries and research centres, with the aim to identify common R&D projects and joint development activities.
All GlassFORM.ai solutions are conceived and developed to be universally applied, open to all IS machines and sensors in the market.
The starting point of the GlassFORM.ai development portfolio will be based on products and solutions already available, where edge technologies (i.e. big data and machine learning) have been successfully implemented, exploiting the results achieved in other industrial segments. Examples of the first solutions soon available are automatic management of gob forming operations and integration of cold/hot end data to optimally drive process stability and accuracy.
“According to our discussions with all our customers, the automation of the glass containers process is becoming a key priority to meet all the current challenges,” said Benoit Burin Des Roziers, CEO of Tiama. “Creating an independent co-enterprise with Bottero to provide universal and plug and play solutions appeared to us obvious long time ago. Tiama is now very happy to transform long discussions in reality with GlassFORM.ai. This industry trend is obvious in many segments and Tiama feels extremely committed to contribute to deliver very competitive solutions to all its customers. Our glass containers segment cannot be competitive without such solutions, and we want to contribute strongly.”
“Automation is today of paramount importance in the glass processing industry and Bottero products have always been ahead with innovative solutions leveraging machine learning and artificial intelligence,” said Marco Tecchio, CEO of Bottero and GlassFORM.ai. “This JV with Tiama is our next strategic step in order to fully automatize the glass forming process. Thanks to Tiama leadership in the inspection and quality control systems and our in-depth knowledge in IS machine and forming process, GlassFORM.ai will be a leading player in our industry, committed to deliver the best solutions for our customers.”