Request Expert

Expert has more than 20 years of experience in glass technology. The first 13 years (1987 – 2001), he was a glass technologist at Verlipack, the (only) Belgian container glass manufacturer at that time (with 3 plants). In 2001 (due to the bankruptcy of Verlipack) he became a project leader for international projects on glass technology and glass production (including recycling) at TNO in the Netherlands. In 2004, he started my own consultancy activities in the fields of glass production, glass technology and container glass quality.
Expert has a vast experience in raw materials, high cullet ratio glass batches, glass chemistry, glass furnace control and optimisation and glass product quality (optimisation). Consequently there is a wide variety in the projects Expert performed for the glass industry (container, fibre, float, insulation, ..), glass industry suppliers (e.g. raw material suppliers, glass recycling companies) and glass industry customers (mainly the food and beverage industry).

Fibre glass yield improvement, trouble shooting of an E-glass furnace. The production yield and efficiency of one furnace was significant lower than the average yield of the plant. Expert was asked to join the manufacturer’s task force for production efficiency improvement and to make a profound study of the possible causes of this low yield. During a one year audit, a large variety of measurements were done (e.g. viscosity analyses, infra red temperature measurements of the bushings) and a huge amount of historical data (e.g. furnace behaviour - temperature correlations) was studied. In the final report the causes of the lower efficiency were identified and recommendations were made.Extended study of the production problems (huge production losses) and refractory wear phenomena of a float glass furnace (lawsuit - confidential).Development of a ‘Rapid melter’; study of new concepts of glass melting; collaboration to this TNO research project (the Netherlands), which was first of all a theoretical study of totally new concepts and ideas for glass melting.Set-up of quality system for beer bottle production, quality control and improvement of container glass production. A world top brewery, needing urgently beer bottles, asked Expert to assist an Egyptian glass manufacturer to manufacture their beer bottles according their (very) high quality standards, which were (are) much higher than the local standards. In a final report, an extended list of improvements in production and quality control of container glass production was made. Although this manufacturer was not an approved supplier (as their production and QC equipment and quality standards were far too poor for the brewery), the bottles were finally manufactured successfully according the West European high quality standards of the brewery.As a subcontractor for TNO, several official energy efficiency benchmark studies of float, container, insulation, fibre and table ware glass production in the Netherlands and in Belgium (Flanders) ordered by the Dutch and Flemish government (environmental department). The results of this study determined for each glass manufacturing company in the Netherlands and Belgium, at what level they must reduce their waste gas emissions (in order to belong to the so called world top). The origin of this project is the Kyoto Protocol, where quantitative agreements for reduction of greenhouse gas (e.g. CO2) emissions were fixed. In the Netherlands and Flanders, the government took the view not to impose absolute caps to the energy intensive industry, as this would obstruct their expansion possibilities. Neither was chosen for equal % reductions per enterprise, because this would harm industries that have taken early actions and favour industries that are still spilling. The choice was to work with objective standards (to be audited and verified by independent experts), and for this purpose the benchmarking method was preferred. During this project, data of glass furnaces from all over the world were studied in detail. The industries committed themselves to belong to the world top of energy efficiency. The results of these projects were consequently of very high importance for them.