Glass Times editor, Luke Wood, visits Specialist Glass Products to learn more about how the family owned business is continuing to invest in order to prioritise product quality, lead times, technical expertise and a clear commitment to sustainability to customers.

From its based in Huddersfield, Specialist Glass Products (SGP) began operations in 2003 with just a handful of employees, but has grown steadily over the years and now boasts a workforce of over 100.

SGP offers a wide range of glass products, from toughened and laminated to decorative and fire rated, but is best known for its ability to produce highly bespoke curved and oversized glass, including large double and triple glazed units that are particularly suited to high end, ‘Grand Designs’ style residential and commercial projects.

It can toughen, laminate and double-glaze panels up to 6m x 3.2m, and with its state of the art glass bending machinery, can produce high-quality curved glass up to 5m x 3.2m. Advanced automation is absolutely central to SGP’s product and service, but technical know-how plays an important role – the factory is also still capable of traditional glass bending techniques, ideally suited to the style of heritage curved glass typical of older building facades.

It’s a fascinating mix of old and new glass production – but SGP is very much a forward-thinking business, one that is underpinned by constant investment.

In 2008, for example, it installed a £1million worth of glass toughening machinery and automated cutting and processing equipment, followed in 2018 by a new 70,000ft2 factory that included additional toughening furnaces and a greater capacity for cutting and processing.

More recently SGP has commissioned a Systron proHD vertical glass processing machine at a cost of £1.2 million. Said to be the first jumbo-sized machine of its kind in the UK it allows SGP to polish, drill, and wash glass up to 6m x 3.2m – a unique service for customers in the UK.

Capable of producing 120 fully-finished panels per day, the Systron proHD enables SGP to offer cutouts, holes, and bespoke profiles in virtually any shape.

On my tour of the factory, it is interesting to note that the lines are particularly well equipped for operatives to handle the heavy, oversized structural glass that SGP specialises in supplying to commercial and high-end projects – glass that can also be toughened and laminated for enhanced impact resistance, safety and performance.

As Lindsey Fallon, head of sales at SGP explained to me on my visit, modern automation is absolutely vital for any glass processor, but especially so when supplying into commercial and high value projects.

“The investments we’ve made over the years have allowed us to constantly raise the bar in product quality and manufacturing efficiencies – when you’re working with high value oversized glass, we need to make sure the quality is outstanding. It has to be right first time,” she says.

“Lead times are also very important, especially for commercial projects. Our expertise and factory give us the agility to respond to offer fast turnarounds even on highly bespoke and complex orders.

“This helps us to move conversations away from price, and instead focus on service, quality and lead time assurance, which ultimately our much more valuable long-term propositions for customers in our sector.”

Lindsey adds that with commercial projects increasingly dependent on suppliers that can clearly demonstrate that they are operating as sustainably as possible, SGP is part of Saint-Gobain’s Glass Forever Scheme, contributing 775 tonnes of glass to the glass recycling scheme last year.

She also keen to highlight that while it has only been a little over 12 months since the addition of the Systron proHD machine, the company is already looking ahead for further investment.

“The benefit of being a family-owned company, rather than one that is backed by external investment, is that we can make decisions on capital expenditure quickly and with a long term view,” she says.

“That means we will be installing another machine to work in tandem with the Systron in the next six months, to further increase our manufacturing efficiency and the level of service we can offer to customers.

“We are also planning to expand and upgrade our lamination department as well looking at additional facilities, and that’s in addition to a number of new recruits to the team and a complete overhaul of our website,” she adds.

“It’s a tough market at the moment, but we are optimistic for the future – which is why we are continually looking to further enhance both our product offering and service and to give our customers a competitive advantage.”