Glassolutions has competed a £1.5 million capacity-boosting investment programme to increase production efficiency and improve product quality at its Dudley factory. The plant now has an additional 50% capacity to serve the growing demand for toughened products.
Glassolutions’ Dudley factory manufactures domestic sealed units including a full range of Plantitherm low-e and float glass products.
The investment programme at Dudley has focused on three key areas, with the installation of a new automated Hegla glass loader, a new LISEC compact grinding machine and a new Firejet furnace.
Automated glass manufacturing
The automated Hegla glass loader makes sure that the plant’s cutting tables are fed more quickly and reliably with the 20m2 float glass sheets that are delivered daily. This allows the new LISEC vertical compact grinding machine to ensure that the glass is precision arrissed, once the glass is cut to size.
The glass is then fed into the Firejet furnace, which efficiently toughens glass in just a few minutes. As well using 30% less energy than the machine it replaced, the new furnace enables Glassolutions to maintain a higher standard of glass production with a lower risk of glass imperfections.
As all three of these processes are mostly automated, the need for manual handling is reduced resulting in a much safer working environment for Glassolutions staff and a more consistent product.
