Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by PGTI University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
Good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast and we are in a series called Windows and Doors 301. Today we're going to be talking about glass and quality. Obviously, glass is a major component of our product. And so in studio we have John Baumgartner and Chris Hewitt. Thank you for joining us today.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Good morning.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Thanks for having us.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks for coming in. And so I'm going to let you gentlemen introduce yourselves. I don't care who goes first, but just a little brief overview of your role responsibilities, maybe your background, your history, whatever you want to share, and then we'll dive right in.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: So.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: So my name is John Baumgartner. I'm the glass plant quality engineer here with bgt. Been here with the company for three years. And prior to this, I was a quality engineer for a copper tube manufacturer and a ceramic engineer for Kohler making toilets and sinks. I majored in ceramic engineering, which also focuses on glass. So I feel like I am back home doing what I learned back in college. So it's pretty great.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Nice. Okay, well, thanks for coming.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: All right, Chris, good morning. So, Chris Hewitt, I am the director of quality for pgti. So I get to work with all of our brands nationwide. I've been with PGTI for two years now. A little over two years prior to that, I come from the construction industry, so we built hospitals and power plants and large installations like that. So definitely not foreign to the fenestration industry by any means. And some of the opportunities within. And then part of that, most of my career was spent in manufacturing for some large industrial manufacturers. So been around manufacturing my entire career.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Nice. Well, we're glad to have you both. Thanks for joining me today. That's one of the beautiful things about the podcast is I get to bring really smart people in and they get to talk about what they know and then we get to share it out with the rest of the world. So I know glass and quality is a big topic and we could talk about this all day, but I'm not Joe Rogan and I'm not going to be Joe Rogan. And so we're going to keep this concise but also helpful. And so I know that there are standards, but what kind of industry standards do we adhere to? And are there like, certifications or. Tell me what this looks like from an industry standpoint.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Sure. So there's two differentiations there. So you've got glass standards which are going to be covered by astm, which is American Society for Testing and Materials. So they're going to give kind of the rumble strips, so to speak, on what's good and bad or what is acceptable from an industry standpoint, what do we look to stay within? And then you have certifications, so you have SGCC and igc, which are the two main ones that we focus on. One is for safety glazing, and the other one is for our igus, our insulated glass units, to make sure that they perform as intended. So the SGCC and IGCC are specifically certifications. So meaning our products that leave our facilities are certified to meet those requirements. And then the standards we refer back to again for ASTM really help us pass judgment on raw float glass coming into the plant and finished goods leaving the plant and how we judge, or how we pass criteria, standards and judge the quality of those products prior to leaving the plant. And then obviously once they're installed and out in the field. And then John really kind of deals with the day to day of maintaining and achieving those certifications and then also training team members on those standards. So I don't know, John, if there's anything you want to kind of COVID on that end.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Yeah. So on our certifications via SGCC and igcc, we have to send in samples to SGCC for safety glazing. We do this twice a year and we send in our tempered glass products as well as our laminated impact products, and we send in both. So SGCC can test and verify that the glass we produce adheres to another standard, ANSI Z97 1. It has requirements in there for tempered glass breakage, how it's supposed to break, maximum size for safety reasons. And then our laminated glass making sure that if it's impacted, the glass doesn't separate from the vinyl. And with the glass being adhered to the vinyl, it is a safe environment for the homeowner on the inside of the residence.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I know that there's some discrepancy around that. Lisa Wilson and I talked about that once before around if it is laminated, that does meet safety requirements, but sometimes people don't realize that and so they want to fuss about it and it's like, no, no, no. But it's not going to break into these giant dangerous shards that are going to, you know, cut an artery and all of that.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: So the other interesting thing too, on the industry standard side, so I think a lot of times there's a misconception that glass is going to be perfect and clear. And the reality is there's no such thing as a perfect piece of glass, whether that's raw glass coming from a float plant or a finished IGU unit coming out of one of the manufacturing plants. Those ASTM standards give us again, kind of a guideline for what's acceptable at what distance. What's a viewing area. For instance, typically you would look at the outer 20% as a non main viewing area. The inner 80% percent would be your main viewing area. And there's different criteria for both of those areas. On a given piece of glass, the typical distance that we would stand back is usually about six feet. You're looking through those viewing areas and then you're looking for size and clustering of different types of defects and there's different specifications for each defect. I will tell you that the standard that PGTI Overall adheres to is stricter than the ASTM standard. So the expectation we have of our finished goods does meet or exceed typically that ASTM standard for glass quality.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah, and actually we have a course, thanks to John, he put together a glass quality video course and it has a lot of those references, those specifics in this course. And that's a video that's actually on our YouTube channel as well as a course within the platform of PGTI University. So we have that out there for people to really deep dive into that so that they can have that information, you know, because questions do come up and is this acceptable? Is it not acceptable? It's good to know what those standards are and I love that we meet or exceed them. That's awesome.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah. We also have the documented standard available on the website. So there's a customer facing document for our customers and dealers that they can reference to understand how do we judge a piece of glass in the field against the standard?
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Okay, so without giving away any secrets, can we talk about the quality protocols that we have in place? Like I've heard things about breaking glass and shattering glass and pummeling glass and I don't know what any of that is. So if you can shed some light on that, I think that's interesting.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, there's several different process control steps and scanners, clean rooms, light walls, as you mentioned, the break testing for our tempered glass. John and his team kind of oversee all that day to day monitoring of our quality processes. Some of that is required to maintain our certifications and then some of it is above and beyond to make sure that we are providing the best possible quality glass to our Customers. So John, maybe you can kind of talk about what you gu do on the day to day and maybe without kind of the intervals of that testing. But at a high level, what some of that testing include and what some of that state of the art equipment is over there.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Yeah, most definitely. So from a certification standpoint, we have to test our heat strengthened glass products and tempered glass products. We test those daily to ensure our equipment is performing in such a manner that the end product will meet SGCC and ANSI requirements. So along with the tempered and heat strength and brake testing we do, we actually take a center punch and use that to shatter the glass and then it breaks in this really pretty pattern. And we evaluate the break pattern, look for uniformity across the unit piece size, various bits of information that's required from the test method that we adhere to via the certification. And that's just kind of fun, you know, if you get stressed out, you go, I'm going to go do a break test today.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: So pretty good.
[00:08:04] Speaker C: And then for our laminated product we actually get a break more glass. So for our laminated units we have to do a pummel a bake test and a ball drop test. And each one of those is unique. The pummel test, we actually take a hammer to a laminated piece of glass and we hit it a set number of times to evaluate the glasses adhesion to the vinyl. So what we're looking for is how much glass possibly separated from the vinyl. After this test is performed. We're lucky enough to have an automatic pummel tester that was made in house. So we don't have to use a ball bean hammer by hand. So that's really cool test. Also the ball drop test, it's again it's another adherence to SGCC requirements. So we take this steel ball, drop it from 12ft high onto a laminated sample that's 12 inches by 12 inches and it makes a really amazing thud sound.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: And that again tells us how well the glass will adhere to the vinyl and how well that product will handle an impact. And then our bake test, our other test that we do for laminated glass is it'll tell us if there's any issues with again final adhesion to the glass or if there's any trapped air or moisture in the vinyl that it can form as air bubbles down the road. So it'll help us understand if there's a source of, we call it delamination that may occur. So a lot of fun tests we get to do every day. We even get to break our IG units. So after we make an IG unit, we let it sit for 24 hours, we cut an X pattern across it, break it, and then we peel back the glass to check how well the sealer and spacer adhere to that glass surface to ensure the IG unit, once it's installed, it won't have any condensation issues down the road.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Wow. Hey, John, could you talk just a little bit about the specialized equipment that we also use for some of our thin glass edge quality testing? So that's super critical for us for that particular product. And you guys have got some really innovative equipment over there that you use.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Yeah. So we got a compression and tension tester to validate that the thin glass products that we have, and the edge strength quality meets Corning's recommendations. So the Instron testers, again, we get to break more glass. Quality testing is fun. And we have a sample of a set size. We set it in the machine, and it's pretty automated at. As you test this piece of glass and it deflects and it requires more and more force to break it, it is automatically plotting this graph for us. We know how much force over time is required to break this piece of glass, and we take that maximum force and then with some mathematics, convert it into a number that will tell us, yes, this glass meets strength requirements for our own internal quality criteria for our thin glass. So then it can be used in a manufacturing operation that is less prone to breaking. If you have weak glass, you can't handle it the same. You got to be more delicate with it. So we want to make sure we have the strongest glass possible to survive our manufacturing process.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: We are sharing our expertise around all topics relating to the window and door industry. Whether you are a customer selling our products or a homeowner doing research, the Clear Impact podcast provides helpful content that makes an impact. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
Yeah, because, I mean, windows and doors, once they're in place, they need to just stay put. But it's a whole different thing when you're maneuvering it, right. You're moving it from this table to this cart and then across the way over to windows frames being built and then dropped into those frames and then being manipulated and moved around and then packaged and banded and then on a truck and to a warehouse and then onto another truck. And, you know, so there's a lot of handling of these products. So they've got to be able to withstand some of that. Right. Just to get into the house.
[00:11:36] Speaker C: Yep. Which is always a struggle. We break glass internally, like every glass manufacturer does. And.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: We got to be able to recreate that piece and send it.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: Well, it's glass. It's going to break.
[00:11:47] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: So when you drop a glass at home, do you, like, look at the pattern?
[00:11:51] Speaker C: I do. And whenever I go out to visit any place, I'm always looking for that SGCC logo in the corner to see who made it.
[00:11:58] Speaker A: And Right.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: If it's impact glass or tempered glass, I just. I kind of nerd out about glass when I go out.
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really hard to turn it off no matter where you go.
[00:12:06] Speaker A: I know, I know. I'm out on a boat last weekend on the bay, and I'm looking at all these houses. I'm like, ooh, they didn't get the right kind of picture window to go with that casement. Look at those sight lines. And my family's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, never mind.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: It's funny, we had a group of quality individuals from overall across the MITRE group meet down in Texas recently, and about 8:00 in the morning, there's about a dozen of us that are staring at glass in the lobby. And the manager comes up concerned that something's wrong or his building's falling down. And we're pointing out defects in the glass material from a hotel that was built 10, 15 years ago. But there's all these glass people pointing out, here's suction cup marks, here's this debris, here's that. So it was interesting.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. He's probably like, oh, this is fun.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: He walked away more confused than when he walked up, that's for sure.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Well, that's what engineers do, right? No, just kidding. I love conversations with engineers. I always feel like I learn more. Right. So actually, suction cup marks are a thing. Right. So there's been a little bit of buzz about that. Is that normal? Is that outside of standards? Like, it's kind of the elephant in the room. Right. But I think it's worth mentioning. And so when you handle large pieces of glass, you can't pick them up by the edges. You have to use a suction cup. You have to use a crane. We use it when we're assembling our pieces. The float plants use it. But what can that end up doing for the end product?
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Yes, that definitely comes up time to time. We see it in the field. As I mentioned, that hotel we were staying at in Texas was a good example. That was one of the things that we were looking at in the morning when you have condensation on the outside of a piece of glass. So, first of all, it's inherent in glass handling and processing all the way from the float plant to when installers are actually installing windows, indoor panels. It's pretty typical to use suction cups throughout the industry at every point that that glass is touched. Both, again, the raw glass coming in, unpackaging and handling that glass through a glass processing facility, and then even lifting that glass in a final assembly. Sometimes you're talking about, you know, for large door panels or even large picture windows, you're talking about glass that weighs hundreds of pounds.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:12] Speaker B: So these are done with lift assist and different mechanical devices as well. All grab the glass by using suction cups. And that's going to be on the exterior surface of the glass. So once you install that unit in the right situation, especially if you have, you know, a pool or you're up against a lake or something like that, where you get heavy condensation on the regular, you may have one or two windows that are in the right spot that have suction cup marks that I guarantee you're on every piece of glass in every home. But in the right situation, and you can get condensation in the morning and you'll see a perfectly outlined pattern. We just actually installed brand new PGT windows in our home here in Florida. And we have one particular picture window that in the morning, I can see every suction cup mark. And because we get to deal with the specifics, I can see, yep, I know what suction cup machine made that mark, and I know what machine made that particular mark. But usually after about an hour, as soon as the sun hits that or the condensation dissipates, you know, it's just clear glass at that point. There are methods that homeowners or installers on those case by case, kind of rare occasions where you have one that's of particular concern, or it's, you know, hey, this is on a picture window that's in my dining room, and that's where I sit in the morning and I drink coffee. And I don't want to look at that pattern. There are ways to easily buff or clean those suction cup marks off. But typically that's not something that we define as a defect or something wrong with the glass. It's just inherent with the glass handling process. And again, you may just have a certain piece of glass in a certain area, or you're up against a lake or some other consistent water source. Even Your sprinklers turning on can add humidity to that specific area so they can be cleaned and buffed off on that case by case basis. But yeah, there's unfortunately nothing you can do about it. It's just part of the industry. It's not truly a defect.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Right. And so for installers, maybe just make sure those suction cups are nice and clean and that there's no grit or dirt that can scratch the gl, that could, you know, lend to even more issues along those lines.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really good point. And John's team has, in the glass plants, there are cleaning frequencies for suction cups and that sort of thing. Because you don't want to be in a situation where you have a piece of embedded glass or some type of foreign material that's actually scratching the glass. That is a true defect. But a suction cup mark isn't necessarily scratching of the glass surface. That's a separate item and that is a defect and a warrantable item. But having suction cups clean will help in reducing the look of suction cup marks. But again, it's really more about where that window's positioned and what's the environment that it's in. You're fighting something inherent in the process. So again, it's going to be there. It's just in those situations where it.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Rears its head well and condensation is just going to happen. I mean, especially in humid climates, right?
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: Different times of year. Or even in the winter. Right. When it's warmer inside and colder outside. You can have your windows do that too. I mean like my car is always disgusting in the winter. Like if it's not in the garage, it's like, okay, I gotta towel it off before I can drive to work. So just happens. Right, well, thank you for clearing that up. So does the quality vary with like the different sizes and colors and glass package types? Does it change, does your process change for quality evaluation?
[00:17:14] Speaker B: The evaluation process, again I'll refer back to both the ASTM standard and then the glass standard that we publish for our dealers and customers to review, as well as the residential glass criteria standard that we defer to for our in house glass processing. All of them vary slightly based on the size of the glass. So there are different viewing distances. Obviously if you've got a spot small piece of window glass, you're viewing that at a much closer distance potentially than a large 10 foot door panel or something like that. That viewing distance is typically going to be a little bit farther away. And then most of the standards are written not from a measurement from the edge to the center viewing area of the glass. They are all a percentage. So that percentage, it would be different as far as the amount of area that you're looking at for a large piece of door glass where you're looking at the outer 20% versus the outer 20% of a small, you know, two foot square window glass.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Sure, that makes sense. And so there's another thing, and this is what I've heard Patrick refer to in some of his instructor LED trainings that he does is the glass dance or the distortion dance. And I know that that's also covered in the video that we made, but can we just talk about that? Like the distortion dance?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you could stand back and look at a group of individuals that are trying to pass determination on distortion, it is a pretty funny sight. I know if you're able to excuse yourself from the situation and watch a bunch of people shift from the right foot to the left foot, back and forth, it is kind of choreographed, especially when they all start doing it at the same time.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: But at the end of the day, typically you're stepped back from a piece of glass. Ideally you're viewing that at a 90 degree angle or 90 degrees from the glass surface. And then as you shift back and forth, if you're looking for something like distortion or some type of defect in the low E coating or some color shift that you're seeing, a lot of times you can't see it unless you start to shift kind of side to side or you're trying to look at a tree through the glass and look at what the distortion is. And again, distortion has different criteria whether you're looking through the center viewing area, the outer 20%. And I'll refer back to again, there is no distortion free piece of tempered or heat strengthened glass. They will all have distortion. It's to what degree that distortion exists. Right. So you'll often see people kind of shifting back and forth or stepping forward and backwards, just trying to get the right angle and understand what somebody else is seeing or try to pass judgment. But not so funny when you're trying to determine what is good or bad. But it is funny if you can step back and watch some folks do it. Because if you didn't know what they were doing, you'd have no idea. It looks like a really bad version of a line dance.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: So is that what the hotel manager saw you guys doing when you were in Texas?
[00:19:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that was one of the, that was one of, one of the concerns as we're all up there swaying back and forth together at 8:00 in the morning.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: 8:00 in the morning. I mean, if it had been 8 o'clock at night and you'd had, you know, some adult beverages, it might have been, you know, more acceptable.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: Different conversation, probably. Different perception of what was going on.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: Bigger crowd. Everybody in the whole hotel's lobby is down there just swinging side to side.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Nice. Like a little silent disco going on. Oh, that's awesome. So this has been a helpful conversation. Is there anything we've left out? Did we cover everything?
[00:20:13] Speaker C: There is one thing I forgot to cover in our quality tools that we get to use for inspecting glass, and one that's kind of near and dear to my heart. It's our glass quality scanners on our IG lines that automatically scans each piece of glass that goes through it. There's three different colors of light, a red, blue, and a green at a specific brightness and color light, like a wavelength. And the camera and system is smart enough it can actually capture those defects. And there's an algorithm built into the machine that'll categorize it as a scratch, a blemish, a smear, a coating defect. And it gets. It's a really powerful tool that lets us know, hey, is there something wrong with this piece of glass that doesn't adhere to our specifications for glass quality? And then we get to make a judgment call and use our eyes to see. Okay, does it still pass our specification when viewed at 3 foot, 6 foot, 10 foot, does it, does it still meet our quality standards? So the scanner will show defects you can't see unless you're one inch away from the glass, which nobody's going to be an inch away from the glass grading. That's why we stand back.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: But that scanner, there's other scanners out there that do the same thing, but this one in particular does a really great job in helping ensure our glass quality is good for our IG units.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: That's amazing. Yeah.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: And John brings up a really good point. So the scanners that we utilize are pretty repeatable. There's very little subjectivity based on the way that they're programmed. Glass inspection and trying to apply the standard to a specific piece of glass can be a subjective process. Right. What I look at and how I grade that piece of glass may be different from how a dealer looks at it or a homeowner looks at it. There are very defined and quantifiable pieces to that. But at the end of the day, it's probably one of the more subjective items in our industry. All glasses is inherently defective, so what level of defective is acceptable? So the scanners do help us to ensure we have some degree of repeatability to what comes out of the factories every day.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Good point, John.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: I love that. I love how fancy we are around here.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: And there's more coming.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Nice. Well, I know Joe Morazi talked about the new IG lines that are coming in, and Ronnie talked about the auto seamers that are coming in. And so there's big stuff happening over at the glass plant.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: Yep. A lot of improvements.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it's exciting. All right, well, gentlemen, I think this is a wrap. Thank you so much for your expertise and making a topic that could be kind of dry actually interesting, but I think it's really relevant. Obviously, we want to make sure people understand what we do to ensure that the quality that they receive is the best. But there is no such thing as a purpose, perfect piece of glass, so it's finding that happy spot for everybody. Awesome.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Thanks a lot for the invite.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Thanks for coming out. Today.
The Clear Impact podcast is brought to you by PGTI University. We are a part of Mitre Brands, a family of leading window and door brands united by our passion for quality and relentless pursuit of 100%. One of the missions of Mitre Brands is to unite and deliver the finest customer experience possible across the nation. Our window indoor brands deliver regionalized expertise and products. Backed by a national company. PGTI University is here to educate you, our listener, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window indoor products.
