Conference Programme
DAY ONE: 14th September
All timings are in BST
Keynote Presentation
09.00 Securing our Industry’s Future: Towards Climate-Neutral Container Glass
Fabrice Rivet - Environment, Health and Safety Director, FEVE
09.30 Use of In-Furnace Thermal Imaging for 4.0 and Decarbonisation in Steel, Non-Ferrous and Glass
Neil Simpson - BEng(Hons) CEng MEI FSGT MIRefEng, Independent Consultant - Simpson Combustion and Energy Ltd
10.00 Tools that Reduce Energy Demanded by Furnaces While Keeping Quality and Furnace Lifetime in Tact
René Meuleman - Director of Business Development, CelSian
10.30 What if a Furnace was Intelligent Enough to Improve its own Performance?
Mark Allen - Sales Director, Mechatherm
Networking Break
11.30 Net Zero – Future Challenges for Furnace Operators
Dan Hulme - Business Development Manager, Inspired Energy
12 noon The Aluminium Recycling Plant of the Future
Iñigo Guinea - CEO, GHI Hornos Industriales
Lunch & Networking Break
14.00 Plasma Torches: Electric / Zero CO2 Conversion for Fossil Fuel Burners
David D’Aoust - Sales Manager – Drosrite™, PyroGenesis Canada Inc.
14.30 Looking Forward Through Glass
Stuart Hakes - Chief Executive, F.I.C. (UK) Limited
15.00 Glass Melting Furnaces
Dirk Schnurpfeil - Research and Development, Nikolaus Sorg GmBh & Co. KG
15.30 Reducing Emissions and Increasing Output in a Continuous Thermal Process using AI
Claudio Goldbach - Chief Executive Officer, Perfil Group
DAY TWO: 15th September
In association with the British Industrial Furnace Constructors Association Standards Seminar
10.25am: Chairman’s Introduction
Arthur Watson, BIFCA Chairman
10.30 DSEAR from a Gas Engineers Perspective
Danny Brennan – Director, DB Gas Associates
Danny Brennan will give his views on DSEAR/ATEX from a practical gas engineering perspective and discuss DSEAR Risk Assessments from a hands-on view point.
11.00 European and International Furnace Standards
René Branders - President, CECOF
Andrea Baio - Vice President, CECOF
René Branders and Andrea Baio have vast collective experience in the development and practical application of industrial furnace standards. This presentation will uncover the current status of the evolving EN746 series of European safety standards and the progression of some of them to international ISO versions.
11.30 The Importance of Safety Standards
Adrian Goodbrand - Director of Sales, Vacuum Furnace Engineering Ltd
Adrian will outline the key principles of standards and why they are necessary. He will address this from the perspective of the furnace designer/manufacturer with the production of vacuum furnaces in mind and, of course, the benefits to the end user.
12.00 An Overview of Gas Standards in the UK
Jonathan Farmer - Sales Director, Duomo
The Institute of Gas Engineers have produced a set of gas standards for application in the UK. Jonathan will outline the scope of these standards as available to the industrial furnace industry and attempt to position them alongside other established European and worldwide furnace standards.
12.30 Furnace Operations Safety – A User’s Perspective
Richard Heath - Health, Safety and Environment Specialist, the Cast Metals Federation
This presentation will cover the safety and technical issues with the operation and maintenance of a furnaces in a foundry environment. It will consider the application of relevant standards (where available!) and Richard will highlight some interesting statistics relating to situations commonly encountered.
13.00 UK Gas Regulations and the Gas Quality Debate
Danny Brennan – Director, DB Gas Associates
Danny will be looking at the controversial plans to fluctuate the quality of gas throughout Europe and what the impact this will have on the UK and what it could mean for the UK Gas supply.
13.30 Market Access for the UK
Mark Lindsay - Director, Product Approvals UK
The dominant furnace standards in Europe and the UK since the late 1980’s have been the EN746 series. Brexit has now happened and infrastructure changes are taking place. CE marking still exists and will continue to exist but the UK has introduced the UKCA mark. What will this mean? Mark will illustrate and clarify some of the issues surrounding ‘Notified Bodies’, ‘Approved Bodies’ and the options facing not just UK players but international ones as well.
14.30 Discussion Forum (online)