Mexican glass manufacturer Vidrio Formas, is reaping the benefits of its nine-year partnership with IRIS Inspection machines through a major upgrade and expansion of its inspection facilities in 2022.
IRIS is retrofitting the customer’s first machine, installed in 2013 with new hardware and the latest NEO intelligent software systems. This is the first step in a scheduled programme of upgrades across all Vidrio Formas machines.
IRIS CEO Jen-Luc Logel said, “We named our machines EVOLUTION because unlike others, they evolve through time and never go obsolete. Each inspection module can be upgraded as we develop new technology, so every one of the customer’s machines remains as efficient, fast and intelligent as our latest model.”
Retrofitting an EVOLUTION machine brings significant cost and environmental savings to IRIS’s customers:
- Reduces investment by up to 55 percent over a new machine when a whole inspection line (sidewall, geometry, base, finish and mould reader) is upgraded
- Slashes the cost of false rejects by incorporating the latest inspection features
- Cuts the customer’s carbon footprint by eliminating the production and transportation emissions, associated with a whole new machine
- Retains the embedded carbon in the existing infrastructure for another 10 years or more
Vidrio Formas has recently installed four new machines at its greenfield production plant in Lerma, Mexico, and has four more on order for the next two production lines. By the end of 2022, the company will be operating 22 IRIS inspection machines across all its production facilities.
Vidrio Formas COO Alex Schneeweiss said, “IRIS is our trusted partner. They develop all their innovations in close co-operation with customers like us, so they always deliver what we need. We have total confidence in them and their excellent local technical support team, as we expand our production for customers in Mexico and beyond. Just like our original EVOLUTION machines, the new ones will never go out of date.”
Vidrio Formas itself is in the front line of that joint innovation and mutual trust. The company is one of the first IRIS customers to send defect images taken by EVOLUTION machines, directly to the cold end through its own information system.
With over 50 job changes a month in its main glass plant, Vidrio Formas requires accurate and flexible inspection machinery which can easily be adapted to the parameters of a rapidly changing production run. In Mexico’s expanding glass market, the company’s partnership with IRIS inspection machines is one of the foundation stones of its service.