The process of improving the main technical characteristics of a glassmaking furnace is examined: production capacity, specific throughput of the glass mass, and specific consumption of heat for glassmaking. It is shown that these characteristics are intercoupled and interdependent. The heat balance method is used to investigate the dependence of the specific consumption of heat on a number of parameters of the thermal operation of a furnace. It is recommended that the heat balance method be used at the initial stage of designing glassmaking furnaces.Given the diversity of glass products and methods for manufacturing them, every glassmaking furnace should be regarded as a specially designed (novel) object. Prolonged continual operation makes it impossible to upgrade a furnace during the period between repairs. Consequently, when a design concept for a furnace is being developed, modern trends in furnace construction, improvement of the basic characteristics and their intercoupling, as well as the technical possibility and economic desirability of attaining prescribed efficiency parameters must all be taken into account. In other words, the objective conditions for maintaining competitiveness of the final product during the entire period of furnace operation must be incorporated in the goal set for a project.For glassmaking furnaces, the goal of a design is to solve a multivariant problem with a large number of variables, many of which are intercoupled and cannot be measured directly. Thus, the production capacity of a furnace is determined not only by its construction but also by the organization of the heat-exchange processes in the flame space and in the melting tank. The specific fuel consumption depends on the specific throughput of the glass mass, flame arrangement, efficiency of the thermal insulation of the refractory masonry, operation of the regenerative heater, and other factors. The specific throughput of the glass mass, the temperature regime of melting, the quality of the refractory materials, and other factors all influence the furnace run. The parameters of the flame arrangement (direction, length, and so forth), the convection flows, the distribution of the melt temperature in the melting tank, the uniformity of the glass, and other characteristics cannot be measured and much less systematically monitored with instruments.Under these conditions, to determine the goal of a design the technical characteristics, which together objectively reflect, as completely as possible, the technical and economic efficiency of a glassmaking furnace, must be prioritized. Such parameters, which are used in international practice, include the following: production capacity, specific consumption of heat for making glass, specific throughput of the glass mass, and the total production of glass per 1 m 2 of the melting tank area for a furnace run. It must be acknowledged that many problems facing our domestic glass industry largely arose not only because of a lack of competition between producers and the low cost of na...