At FLACHGLAS, a culture of operational excellence fuels continuous modernizations. “The latest Glaston ProL-zone upgrade for our 50-year-old lamination line has helped us raise performance, save energy and automate production with the push of a button,” said Martin Geiss, Technical Manager at FLACHGLAS Wernberg.
Keeping up the productive synergy
The FLACHGLAS Group has continuously invested in emerging technologies at its three locations in Germany. Along this journey, long-time partner Glaston has actively supported the company’s modernization initiatives and supplied equipment.
Even before the previous joint project to upgrade FLACHGLAS’s two tempering lines was finalized in February 2023, planning for the next upgrade at the company’s Wernberg site in Bavaria was in full swing.
This time, the focus was on the company’s old lamination line, a cornerstone of its operations since the 1970s. The goal was to upgrade it with Glaston’s ProL technology to meet efficiency and sustainability standards while maintaining its unique capabilities.
Back to full operation in 15 days
It took great courage for FLACHGLAS to make any changes to this line. Over the years, the company developed a large number of specialized glass products on this line, requiring considerable expertise. FLACHGLAS wanted to make sure the quality of these specialized products would not be compromised after the upgrade.
The upgrade involved replacing the old heating chambers and both pairs of press rollers with just one heating chamber and one pair of rollers. A reporting system and thermoscanner were added. The results exceeded all expectations.
In January 2024, the line was back in operation in just 15 days – including operator training and even a successful acceptance test with special products.
Empowering employees, elevating efficiency, saving energy
The “split drive,” a game-changing feature of the upgrade, has already paid off. Two drives allow a new sandwich to enter the heating chamber when the previous one has reached the midpoint, even if the sandwiches have slightly different thicknesses.
Employee intervention in the control and input of process parameters has also been significantly reduced, if not completely eliminated. Employees only need to manually enter the parameters for special products. Most products are produced automatically, with the system setting the proper parameters.