Czech Republic-based Glass Service, Inc. has announced that it has acquired F.I.C. (UK) Limited, a designer and supplier of electrical boosting systems for all glass types and manufacturing processes including TFT, LCD, float, fibre, hollowware and borosilicate.
Glass Service, Inc. (GS), Vsetin, Czech Republic has acquired F.I.C. (UK) Limited (FIC), based in Penzance, UK, from CNUD EFCO International NV/SA effective from January 2014.
FIC will continue to operate as an independent specialist and supplier of electric glass melting equipment serving the worldwide glass industry from its UK plant.
FIC designs and supplies electrical boosting systems for all glass types and manufacturing processes including TFT, LCD, float, fibre, hollowware and borosilicate. Additionally, FIC supplies all-electric furnaces and forehearths, offering advanced glass conditioning options with the Isothermal unit to improve side to middle and top to bottom temperature gradients.
The company offers systems to extract heat out of the glass to aid glass conditioning and reduce gas consumption through the use of removable water-cooled tubes. These tubes can be placed anywhere from the throat to the back of the forehearth. These cooling tubes can also be inserted adjacent to severely eroded refractories to delay or even prevent premature replacement of these areas.
Within the range of electrode holders manufactured by FIC is the High ‘Q’ holder, in which the cooling circuit is replaceable in less than 10 minutes. More than 10,000 of these holders have been supplied since their introduction about 20 years ago. Recently FIC has introduced the Maxi ‘Q’ holder which is constructed such that no welded portion is located within the refractory and it has the largest cross-sectional area of waterway when compared to all other holder designs.
This new relationship with Glass Service, Inc. will bring tremendous benefits to FIC’s customers with the availability of modelling as well as extensive glass defect laboratory and testing facilities.
GS, headquartered in the Czech Republic with offices in the Netherlands, US, China and Slovakia, is a leading consultant in the field of glass melting, furnace modelling, advanced furnace control and operation, troubleshooting, and optimizing furnace designs, and their performance.
GS programmers have developed in-house mathematical modelling software enabling the optimization of the glass melting and combustion processes in glass furnaces and forehearths. More than 600 different projects have been completed using GS software.
GS Engineering provides electric pot/crucible furnaces and small melting tanks for hand made production, glass jewellery and speciality glass. Additionally laboratory furnaces for High Temperature Observation and Redox measurement are delivered. GS participates in electric boosting design, optimization and delivery.
GS has its own laboratory for glass defect analysis and analyzes more than 2,000 defects yearly. After GS analyzes the defects, the customer receives a report with recommendations on how to solve or reduce the problems. Additional testing capabilities utilize basic and applied research in the field of glass melting.
GS has invested considerable effort into developing a new technology called a “Supervisory Advanced Control System” using proprietary software known as the Expert System – ES IIITM. More than 90 installations have been successfully deployed worldwide.
To support each ES IIITM installation, GS engineers work on batch identification, monitoring and visualization software. The pictures taken by furnace observation cameras are analyzed and the batch line position and distribution is quantified. The result of such an analysis is sent into the ES IIITM software, where it is used to optimize and control the batch length and distribution using model based predictive control.
GS supplies the high quality selected raw materials to the glass industry, fulfilling regulations of REACH law for importing chemicals to the European community, and is the only company in Europe with registered lead silicate.
Furthermore, GS serves the glass market with advanced burners systems from FlammaTec, Ltd. (joint venture of Glass Service, Inc. and STG Combustion Control GmbH & Co KG).