Multidiscipline team dedicated to solving the industry’s most challenging problems
Helping the glass industry optimize their business results, working at closed loops, dark factories and Glass Industry 4.0 requires a lot of knowledge, experience, research and development. Many factories need all their resources to keep the business running 24/7 and to solve their problems and issues on a daily basis. Where factories cannot invest in Research & Development, companies like XPAR Vision make a difference.
“In our own R&D department we employ 15 highly skilled experts, among them a number of PhDs,” says Sander de Jong, XPAR Vision’s Lead Development Engineer. “Together, we form a multidisciplinary team. We develop our future systems, improve and maintain our current systems and support our customers as a second-line support team.”
The modern glass industry is becoming more automated and manual operations are being minimized. The machinery consists of hardware and software that constantly needs to be improved. Computerized parts of the machines also generate larger quantities of data each time. It requires more complex algorithms to analyse and apply the datain a timely manner (preferably in real time). Last but not least, robotizing certain parts of the process demands computer vision, an essential discipline. In the Hot End process everything revolves around infrared cameras.
XPAR Vision consultants spend a lot of their time in glass factories, where they help clients to implement, operate and optimize the systems. “After implementing and using our technology, clients often have feature requests, specific wishes to customize our technology even further to the local situation, or to the personal preferences of the operators,” said Sander de Jong. “It’s always very satisfying to work together, fulfil wishes and see happy faces. On the other hand, sometimes we have to fix bugs in the systems. Although we don’t like bugs, we do learn from them. Every bug gives us a clue for further improvement.
“With most of our clients we have a real-time remote connection with our systems, through Virtual Private Networks (VPN). If necessary, we can watch live over the shoulders of the operators, to see what is happening. Real time remote support is getting more and more important, since our systems are increasingly connected in closed loops. This means that they directly influence the production, so we must be able to respond instantly, when asked.
“Working at the R&D department here is very versatile. This is where the magic happens! Our work touches all imaginable disciplines of a hightech company in a worldwide industrial setting. Big plants, with robust machines that produce 24/7. Employees with tight schedules and little time. Hot and noisy work floors, with lubricant in the air everywhere. We can add value, through high tech engineering, modern applied mathematics and algorithms, high speed cameras, real time processing, big data: you name it! Together, we work at the glass plants of the future: profitable dark factories, with robots, closed loops and the structural reduction of failures, carbon dioxide emissions, use of raw materials and transport costs.”
For more information on Xpar Vision’s Research & Development department, email contact@xparvision.com.