An inefficient transition between different glass formats can cause real problems during the tempering process. It’s not just a matter of wasting time; unfortunately, there are real risks to the success of the process, which could be irreparably compromised.

So, how can these problems be avoided? The answer lies in choosing a glass tempering furnace that is optimised for smooth and fast format changes.

Here are the main risks that can be avoided with this type of furnace.

The management problems of a format change that is too slow…

First, let’s address the critical issues related to your production rates. As you are aware, if a cog jams, it can disrupt all the programmes in your production ‘machine’.

If this problem is not an unexpected event, but rather a recurring risk — as is the case with a format change that is too slow — you will lose time and money with every hardening cycle.

Increased downtime

A slow format change reduces productivity, causing unnecessary machine downtime and slowing down overall production.

Need to temper only in series

If the format change takes too long, you cannot switch from one type of glass to another as and when required, but must schedule long series of identical glass tempering.

This reduces your flexibility.

Energy waste

While waiting to switch from one format to another, furnaces often remain on but are not producing, resulting in increased energy costs. If you find yourself in this situation all the time, it will certainly be noticeable on your bill.

Risk of operational errors

Working times that are too long can lead to carelessness or errors in parameter adjustment, which can result in defects in the tempered glass.

… and technical problems

The speed at which the format changes also has a direct impact on the quality of glass tempering.

Thermal unevenness

A slowdown in format change can result in the glass being heated unevenly. This increases the risk of spontaneous breakage or fragmentation defects.

Glass deformation

If the furnace is left inactive or on standby for too long between formats, and the glass is not heated or cooled evenly, it can become deformed, for example by warping or undulating. These imperfections affect the appearance, flatness and functionality of the final product, for example softening or optical distortion (e.g. distorted reflections on the glass).

Increase in surface defects

Inefficient format change management can introduce surface defects, such as scratches or inclusions, which act as trigger points for breakage during or after tempering.

Risk of accidents

If the glass has not been tempered correctly, it is more likely to break and endanger the safety of operators. Accidental breakage of a glass sheet can pose a serious danger to nearby workers.

A fast and safe changeover is essential to guarantee you a smooth and flexible production of your tempered glass, as well as to contain the consumption of your furnace.

Mazzaroppi’s ovens are the most energy-efficient on the market because they can assure you excellent tempering with consumption up to 70 percent lower than competing solutions – thanks to proprietary technologies designed and manufactured to optimize tempering yield and efficiency.

The M Adapt – Thickness Change Responsive System, for example, is a technology that ensures responsive thickness changes, eliminating unproductive waiting times. Mazzaroppi furnaces adapt quickly and flexibly to the production needs of glassworks and companies, enabling consecutive changes to the thickness of the batch or the type of glass without any waiting time.

The principle behind Mazzaroppi technology is simple: the furnace should adapt to the production needs of the moment by automatically changing the process parameters, rather than the company having to adapt to the furnace’s functionality.

This eliminates waiting times for format changes and reduces unproductive energy costs.

Would you like to know how much you could save with a truly energy-efficient glass tempering furnace?

Request Mazzaroppi’s free Energy Saving Check and we will show you how to guarantee up to 70% lower energy consumption than competing solutions, while avoiding material and time wastage and always achieving the best possible results.

Call us to find out more.

Cameo Glass is an important British company specialising in the production of customised glass solutions. For its site in Swindon, about an hour and a half from London, it chose a Mazzaroppi TP Compact furnace. A choice that makes us proud and that guarantees Cameo Glass UK several advantages.

Who is Cameo Glass?

Cameo Glass has two important things in common with Mazzaroppi: its specialisation in the glass sector and the fact that it is a family business. Since 1994 it has been producing tempered glass, lacquered glass and high-precision custom-made glass products.

For the sale and installation of the furnace, the Mazzaroppi team worked with the company’s official UK distributor, Stone and Glass Group.

Why did Cameo Glass choose the TP Compact?

The company chose a 1.9 m x 3.6 m TP Compact oven with convection.

This allowed Cameo Glass to:

• Replace its old tempering furnace with a larger model: The TP Compact is more compact, so although it is larger than the previous machine, it can be installed in the same space without requiring any adaptations or brickwork.
• Using the same electrical cabinets as the old furnace: TP Compact uses the same power as the previous machine, so there was no need to adapt the equipment. The new Mazzaroppi kiln was commissioned with a total installed power of only 315 KW.
• Record energy savings: compared to its predecessor, TP Compact has drastically reduced the company’s consumption and therefore its operating costs.
• Optimising production: TP Compact’s ease of use has made it easier for the company to set new quality standards.
• Having a furnace up and running in just 10 days: the installation was carried out over the Christmas period, allowing Cameo Glass to resume operations at the beginning of January. Even before the installation was complete, the furnace could be used for tempering and it worked perfectly.

The Mazzaroppi solution

The TP Compact furnace chosen by Cameo Glass is equipped with a new patented Mazzaroppi technology.

Thanks to this patent, the furnace guarantees an exceptional reduction in consumption peaks, thus significantly reducing energy consumption and, like all Mazzaroppi solutions, guaranteeing perfect tempering results.

This new technology joins others that have made Mazzaroppi furnaces the ideal choice for glassworks and companies of all sizes, such as:

• M Start&Stop function, which allows the furnace to be switched off every evening and restarted in just half an hour, reducing production consumption.
• M OptiConvection, the latest generation convection system.
• M Adapt, which ensures a responsive thickness change system with no waiting time.

Cameo Glass is delighted with their choice and we at Mazzaroppi are proud to have contributed to increasing their productivity while reducing their energy consumption.

What is the furnace that can revolutionise your work?

Give us a call to find out more.

What size companies choose TP Compact, the compact oven from Mazzaroppi? There is no single answer to this question: TP Compact is so versatile and high-performance that it adapts to the needs of glassworks and also to those of large companies.

An example of this is the European group Vandaglas, with offices throughout Europe, which chose TP Compact for its Austrian headquarters.

Who is Vandaglas?

The group produces high quality insulating glass and interior glass in all possible shapes and sizes and is active in its locations in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, England and, indeed, Austria, although its products are used worldwide for architectural façades and design projects. With more than 900 employees, it has to date realised more than 10,000 façade projects in over 50 countries worldwide.

‘We put all our efforts into our future,’ says Managing Director Nicolas Alexander Lahodny, ‘and that is why we are very pleased with the investment made in our Heidenreichstein site with the purchase of the new TP Compact. We are looking forward to delivering our first in-house tempered glass to our customers!’.

Why did Vandaglas choose TP Compact?

A globally established company needs an oven capable of ensuring a level of performance excellence. But it is not only this that determines the choice of the right tempering furnace for its needs.

In particular, Vandaglass needed:

• reduced electrical installation: this was their fundamental problem, as they needed to avoid having to redo the entire electrical installation. This would not only have required a particularly large financial investment, but also a good three years to complete.
• limited production consumption: to keep labour costs at an appropriate level.
• limited floor space occupied: they wanted to make the best use of the available company space.
• quality of tempering: they were not willing to compromise on the yield of their final product.
• ease of use of the furnace: for every company today it is essential to have equipment that can be operated even by non-highly specialised personnel and always give excellent results.

Thanks to discussions with the Head of Group Process Engineering at Vandaglas, Guillaume Kaminski, we finalised the choice of the best oven to meet all these needs, after an analysis and testing phase that also took place in part at Mazzaroppi’s Aprilia site, near Rome.

The Mazzaroppi solution

TP Compact meets all the requirements expressed by the company. The model chosen for Vandaglas is 1.9×3.6 metres in size, with convection for low-e, i.e. low-emissivity glass.

In addition, installation and testing took place on schedule, thanks to the valuable collaboration of Site Manager Mario Müllauer and Head of Group Process Engineering Guillaume Kaminski.

The compact, high-performance furnace from Mazzaroppi meets all the quality requirements imposed by Vandaglas, to the full satisfaction of the company, which can now:

• Temper glass in-house with up to 70% lower consumption than other tempering furnaces.
• Have an oven that is always ready, because TP Compact goes from 0 to 680° C in one hour.
• Eliminate unproductive costs, because TP Compact can be switched off every night and the day after the first start-up it can reach temperature in half an hour.

Would you also like to know if there is a tempering furnace that can revolutionise your work too?

We’ll tell you: ask for a free Mazzaroppi Energy Saving Check and discover the solution for you, perfectly adaptable to your space and in line with the consumption you do not want to exceed.

The best way to demonstrate the outstanding performance of the Mazzaroppi TP Compact furnace is to let the facts speak for themselves. This is why we have decided to bring our iconic compact glass tempering furnace to one of the most important events in the industry: a fully functional TP Compact will be on display at the Mazzaroppi stand at Glasstec 2024.

Date in Düsseldorf, Germany, from 22 to 25 October 2024, for all those who want to see with their own eyes the performance of the TP Compact.

TP Compact at the show: what you will see

The TP Compact that we will install on the Mazzaroppi stand at Glasstec 2024 will be switched on every morning and off every evening. In this way, it will be possible to see how the exclusive M Start&Stop JIT ignition technology: 0° to 680° in 1h brings the furnace up to temperature in a very short time, effectively eliminating the unproductive consumption that forces companies to keep their furnaces on all the time.

Thanks to features such as these, the TP Compact consumes up to 70% less energy than other solutions on the market, while guaranteeing an excellent curing result.

In addition, this furnace does not require a large electrical cabinet to operate: it will therefore be possible to see that the system at the exhibition is sufficient to operate the TP Compact perfectly, which is fully operational with a 200 kW electrical cabinet.

During Glasstec 2024, we will be giving live tempering demonstrations where you will be able to see how easy it is to use the furnace, thanks to its user-friendly interface, as easy to use as a smartphone.

Then, of course, you will be able to see the performance of Mazzaroppi hardening technologies, such as

• M OptiConvection Optimised Convection Process: this allows the hot air to be used only in the part of the furnace where the glass is located, adapting it to the percentage of space occupied in order to obtain a higher tempering quality with incredibly low consumption.
• M Adapt Thickness Change Responsive System: the responsive thickness change eliminates unproductive waiting times.
• M HI-Responsive Fast Reactivity to Changes: gives the furnace high reactivity and enables it to adapt quickly to different job requirements.
• M No Spot -97% Anisotropy: makes the risk of curing spots virtually negligible.
• M SmartMove Adaptive Glass Movement: allows the furnace to automatically make adjustments and adjustments to optimise the curing result, making the machine as easy to use as possible for the operator.
• M Stop Lift Edge Reducing Software: Optimum, uniform management of heat distribution, preventing deformation of the sides and corners of the sheet.
• M Roller Wave Intelligent Setting: the infinitely variable automatic movement that adapts to the type and thickness of the slabs.

But that’s not all: TP Compact is also an excellent design, and at Glasstec 2024 you will be able to see how it can be conveniently installed in the middle of a room, without the need for supporting walls or brickwork.

Book your appointment now!

Seeing a fully functional glass tempering furnace live at the show is an opportunity not to be missed.

For this reason, we invite you to make an appointment to ask us all your questions about TP Compact and all other Mazzaroppi energy-efficient solutions for glass tempering.

Do you already have questions?

Give us a call and we will tell you how to temper at your best and save up to 70% on your energy bill!

Depending on the industry they serve, glassworks and companies involved in the manufacture of toughened glass products have very different requirements. In some cases, these are even non-standard requirements for which not all tempering furnaces can provide the right answer.

So, is there a tempering furnace to suit all needs and all types of companies?

Glass tempering is a complex process requiring advanced technology, so the performance guaranteed by most furnaces is generally acceptable. The situation changes when certain specific qualities are required from the tempering process, such as minimising temper marks on the glass or being particularly energy efficient.

While it is true that there are furnaces that can best meet the needs of a large number of glassworks or companies, it is also true that it is unlikely that any ordinary glass tempering furnace will outperform the average in terms of results and fuel efficiency.

So how do you get a furnace that fully meets your company’s needs? Simple: choose a customised glass tempering furnace.

How to customise your glass furnace

A glass tempering furnace can last for decades if it is built with quality materials and robust, state-of-the-art technology.
So before you make an investment that will determine the quality of your work for a long time to come, you need to make sure that the partner who will build your furnace for you carries out a thorough analysis of your needs.

These include:

• The production output you want to achiev;
• Optimisation of your energy consumption;
• Overcoming any limitations related to the structure of your premises.

Once these general parameters have been established, here are some aspects of your tempering furnace that can be customised:

• Heating chamber dimensions: furnaces can be designed with different chamber sizes to accommodate glass sheets of specific sizes.
• Heating systems: Various types of heating systems can be installed, including intelligent systems that ‘fragment’ the heating chambers into many independent areas of reduced size, each with a heating element and thermocouple. Thanks to sensors placed inside and outside the oven, the oven is able to detect the areas occupied by the glass, and the percentage of the glass that is occupied, so that only those areas are heated.
• Cooling systems: These control the cooling rate of the hot glass to create the compressive stresses necessary for tempering. If the glass is not cooled properly, more iridescence is likely to occur. This also requires the furnace to have real-time monitoring systems to avoid tempering errors.
• Automation and control: In addition to the above, tempering furnaces can be equipped with advanced software to monitor and precisely control temperature, air pressure, cooling flows and glass handling to optimise the tempering process. There are also particularly intelligent and flexible software packages that allow thickness changes to be made sequentially in the trolley, eliminating waiting times – an essential feature for speeding up processes. This software also has the enormous advantage of making it much easier for non-specialist personnel to operate the furnace.
• Energy saving software: you can equip your customised glass tempering furnace with systems that make it extremely energy efficient, reducing consumption by up to 70% compared to other solutions. But be careful: this kind of performance is only guaranteed by Mazzaroppi furnaces, which are the most energy efficient on the market.

Thanks to Mazzaroppi’s proprietary technologies, it is possible to equip a customised oven with systems such as just-in-time ignition, which allows the machine to be switched off during the hours when it is not in use, and specific software to limit energy absorption peaks and keep dissipation very low.

TP Advanced, Mazzaroppi’s highly customisable oven capable of tempering any type of glass, is designed to meet the production needs of companies in a wide range of sectors, from household appliances to architecture, from bathroom furniture to the automotive industry. The system can have a minimum size of 1900mm x 4200mm and up to 3100mm x 6200mm. It can also process low-e glass up to e=0.01 and in thicknesses from 2.8mm to 19mm.

And if your requirements are exceptional?

Then you can opt for a machine designed specifically to meet your needs, for example, with the capacity to temper glass on two or three production lines, or with additional heating chambers, or even with an interchangeable heating chamber on two independent lines. With an ad hoc design, you can optimise your working time and diversify your production to the maximum.

Mazzaroppi is the only family dedicated to glass tempering for over 60 years, constantly striving to perfect and innovate its patented technologies.

This is why we are able to meet all your needs for customisation and design, creating the tempering furnace that perfectly suits your business. And guaranteeing you ultra-low consumption!

Would you like to know what you could produce, how you could produce it and how much you would consume with the hardening furnace designed especially for your work?

There are many companies and glassworks that could revolutionise their business by equipping themselves with their own glass tempering furnace. But they often decide not to take this step.

Why not? In most cases, this choice is due to a number of misconceptions that portray quenching furnaces as machines that are only suitable for large companies and that require an exorbitant investment, both in terms of purchase and daily use.

While this may have been true in the past, there are now many innovations in the world of glass tempering that are revolutionising the old concept of these furnaces.

1) A small glasswork does not have the space to install a tempering furnace > WRONG

This may have been true in the past, but today there are tempering furnaces designed to meet the needs of a small to medium sized glassworks.

They are characterised by a more compact design, which allows them to fit into the smallest of spaces. For example, Mazzaroppi’s TP Compact is only 15-19 metres long, so it can fit into a normal laboratory.

2) Installing a hardening furnace always requires expensive masonry work > WRONG

This too is a belief that has been overtaken by the latest innovations.

There are models, such as the TP Compact by Mazzaroppi, that have been designed to avoid the need for brickwork: this compact oven can even be installed in the middle of the glassworks workshop without the need for a supporting wall.

This makes the installation of the new machinery much easier and less costly, as no demolition or renovation work is required.

3) Installing a tempering furnace always requires upgrading your electrical system > WRONG

Fortunately, this is no longer the case: there are indeed solutions that can operate with a 200-kW cabin!

Some quenching furnaces equipped with energy efficiency technologies can reduce cabin costs by up to 70%.

4) Tempering furnace consumption is always high and therefore not a worthwhile investment > WRONG

It is true that glass tempering requires energy. But the latest innovations on the market make it possible to reduce the consumption of annealing furnaces in ways that were unthinkable until recently.

 In fact, Mazzaroppi furnaces can save up to 70% of energy compared to other competing solutions, while maintaining very high glass tempering performance.

How can you save so much on your energy bills? Thanks to special technologies designed to optimise the energy efficiency of installations.

 For example, the Start&Stop technology, which allows the ovens to be switched off every night so that they can be heated up very quickly the next morning. Or those based on multi-zone control systems, designed to heat only the areas occupied by the glass pane, without wasting energy where it is not required, but concentrating it where it is needed.

Therefore, by choosing a technologically advanced oven, it is possible to reduce energy consumption and pay back your initial investment more quickly.

5) Hardening furnaces depreciate quickly > WRONG

This is the fear that every entrepreneur has before making a major investment: “What if this machine is no longer worth anything in a short time?

Fortunately, this fear is unnecessary when it comes to heat-treatment furnaces, provided that you choose a model that offers certain guarantees. In fact, there are ovens that guarantee a residual value of up to 40% after 10 years of use: these are models that are made with top-quality materials, assembled with the greatest care, and meticulously tested before delivery.

By choosing such a model and, of course, not neglecting the maintenance of the system, you can ensure that the tempering furnace will have an average life of more than 30 years. And if the needs of your company or glassworks change, you can consider upgrading the furnace before considering the purchase of a new machine.

Innovation in the world of glass tempering is continuous and evolving, both in the direction of guaranteeing ever higher performance and in the direction of reducing consumption. This is why it is now possible to guarantee amazing energy performance by choosing the tempering furnace model that best suits your needs.

Mazzaroppi’s solutions are the most energy-efficient in the sector, thanks to the know-how acquired and deepened over decades of activity and to the continuous study of new technologies able to respond to the precise needs of companies.

Would you like to know how much money and energy you could save with a Mazzaroppi quenching oven?
Ask for your Energy Saving Check now and we will tell you, free of charge and without obligation, how much your costs could drop with an energy efficient solution.