Express Glass Installation

How a partnership with Clear Thinking strengthened this company's growth

In 1998, Dave Norris started Express Glass Group (Express), 5 years later he's just committed £2,000,000 to expand his business for it's next phase of growth. Express now make 5000 pieces of toughened glass a week, and 2500 units per week from their 10,000 sq. ft factory on the Wirral. On a busy day, they will cut 10 tons of glass on a two year old Promac/MTL Cutting Line, which has enabled Express to retire their previous cutting table and feed both the toughening plant as well as the sealed unit line.

Express first met Clear Thinking Software in October 2001, and at that time they were doing all of their calculations manually. Since then, they have installed a front end order entry system called Glass Office linked to an office optimisation and Sage accounting package. Initially starting with just a single user system, they have now upgraded to a 5 user Glass Office system, and are about to add bar-coding to assist with tracking and identifying glass throughout the factory and on deliveries.

Express has a customer base spread throughout the Merseyside area, through Cheshire and North Wales and as far east as Manchester.

As a part of Express's expansion plan, capital expenditure has been approved for a fully automatic insulated glass line from Promac/For.el, encompassing a Hotmelt Sealing Robot
and Automatic Spacer Bar Bender, all of which are shape, gas filling and softcoat compatible. In addition a second cutting table is planned to feed the extra equipment.
Part of the standard program, Glass Office has the ability to enable the production team to automatically select and optimise glass and spacer bar. With these special links to the CNC equipment and with the advent of bar-coding, these new systems will deliver better control and flow to production, enabling Express to push production towards 5000 units per week.

The expansion does not stop there, however. Within two years time, Express will move into a new, purpose built, architecturally stunning, 20,000 sq. ft factory, standing in it's own man
made lake and parkland.

Dave Norris, Managing Director of Express, says, "when selecting our suppliers, a very simple criteria had to be followed. The systems and machinery would have the responsibility of taking care of our immediate and future requirements. This meant any equipment proposal had to be based on a flexible, modular system combined with the highest build and technical specification. This would allow Express the ability to control it's investment and upgrade or retro-fit equipment, in-line with its commercial needs".

"Our Lambert Toughening Plant has provided faultless operation since it's installation, and has proved it's worth many times over. We couldn't have grown so fast, if we'd been dependant on an external supplier delivering toughened glass to us," explains Dave. "Being in control of our own destiny is vitally important to us and to our customers".

"The For.el IG and MTL Cutting Line from Promac means we can consistently produce a higher specified sealed unit in less time with an entire workforce of only 30 employees. With current and future regulations set to get even tougher, Express is well placed to take advantage of a growing market and meet the challenges of providing a fully compliant quality product to it's customers"

The 'glue' which ties all of this machinery together is - of course - the software. Dave is quick to point out, "the team from Clear Thinking have always been available to us, even upgrading us overnight once, as we couldn't stop production during the day. Glass Office splits the toughened glass from the annealed and then further into single, that goes to other unit manufacturers. The rest returns to sealed unit production, where it is sealed and taped".

Glass Office has many ingenious features, such as the ability to identify deliveries where the driver may have lost paperwork, and still ensures that the customer gets invoiced for genuine deliveries. It also has the ability to sequence production by delivery route automatically to help to optimise deliveries, as well as the glass!

Dave sums up, "we strongly believe in partnerships with our main machinery suppliers and Clear Thinking having all played key roles in our expansion, and it's fair to say that they all are crucial to us now and to our further development".

http://www.expressglass.net/80395/info.php?p=2

Article appeared in Fabrication & Glazing Industries magazine - October 03