Helping a glassmaker rebuild its furnace

O-I Glass (now Visy Glass) is Aotearoa New Zealand’s only glass bottle and jar manufacturing site, making about 70% of the country’s glass food and drink containers. The furnaces at the centre of the operation need to be shut down and rebuilt every 10-15 years, during which time furnace support systems such as electrical and control infrastructure are upgraded. 

When the company’s AK2 furnace needed to be demolished and rebuilt, Middleton Group engineers Adam Loucas, Cameron Bekendam, Nick Armstrong and Barry Shill were called in to deliver the electrical engineering design and support procurement, tender evaluation and construction.  

Electrical Design Lead Adam Loucas says that although the team is experienced in furnace rebuilds, such work involves complex electrical engineering concepts, and, in this case, the shutdown time was fixed.   

To give the company the best possible service, our engineers were based on site so they were able to work efficiently with the O-I team through the construction and commissioning period. Middleton Group was there right until the day the rebuilt furnace was fired up and put back into production. Adam remembers that it was “a proud moment to see the first bottles coming out of the line after we’d delivered the electrical design and site support for the shutdown”.