Investing for the future

As Rehau makes significant investment in its UK operations, Glass Times editor, Luke Wood, visits the company’s PVCR recycling facility and impressive national distribution centre in Runcorn, Cheshire.

Set up three years ago, Rehau’s recycling facility, PVCR, represents an investment of £10million, a figure that will rise significantly over the next 12 months or so thanks to planned increases in capacity of upto 60% by 2024.

Currently, PVCR takes in around 100 tonnes a day of post-consumer window frames and aims to increase its processing capability in the coming years through investment in its pre-shredding operation and overall site utilisation.

This expansion is required to meet growing demand for the high quality recycled polymer PVCR provides Rehau for use in its UK range of window and door profiles.

Another challenge is to increase the input of old frames with Rehau planning to engage more closely with installers and fabricator customers to create more awareness of the benefits of recycling in the long term.

But with hundreds of tonnes already arriving each day, Ceri Davies, PVCR’s general manager, explains that one of the biggest ongoing objectives is to find ways of operating more efficiently.

“At the moment, we aim to despatch around 30 tonnes of the highest grade recycled material a day to our extrusion plant at Blaenau Ffestinig in North Wales,” he says. “Only the very best will do in order to meet the requirements for our co-extruded profile, which uses a thin layer of virgin polymer on the exterior face, that is colour matched to the recycled core.

“As such we put a lot of effort into our separation processes. At the moment, around 20% of our output is removed because it does not meet Rehau’s high quality requirements for white recycled core material. This, usually darker coloured material, is often referred to as ‘dark jazz’ and can be used for other less colour-critical applications.

“Some of this material we sell to other extruders and more recently we also have put processes in place that can use more of it in profiles such as sills, frame reinforcements and supports. As much as 85% of all materials we recover is repurposed into other products but we are looking at ways of improving this, which will be a big step towards our targets for 2024.”
Ceri adds the introduction of a pre-shredding process earlier in 2022, has already greatly improved efficiencies.

Recycled material is fed directly into the pre-shredder, which uses two rollers to break down frames into 150mm size pieces. Metal components are stripped from the profiles and removed with powerful magnets before the polymer is shredded.

Not only has the pre-shredder helped to increase the flow of material through the recycling plant, it has also reduced overall energy consumption by 20% and lowered noise pollution while increasing the amount of material that can be stored on site.

“The energy savings are particularly important, especially in the current energy crisis,” says Ceri. “We’re looking to build on this further, we’ve already reduced the size of the motors in our machinery, as part of our ongoing efforts to improve productivity.”

The developments taking place at PVCR are just one part of substantial investments by Rehau into its UK operations.

It has also recently introduced two, brand new DAF delivery trucks into its fleet. Brimming with the latest technology, they are capable of running on bio-diesel, which means they are greener while also being more aerodynamic. Replacing door mirrors with high tech cameras for instance, delivers a 15% improvement in fuel economy.

Rehau has plans in place to bring more of the next generation lorries into its fleet, which as well as servicing the UK customer base, is also tasked with transporting recycled material to Blaenau – as well as freshly extruded profile back to the main distribution hub that’s located a stone’s throw from the PVCR recycling facility.

Ideally located to serve the whole of the country, Rehau’s national distribution centre is state of the art and holds around £10million worth of profile at any given time, ensuring quick lead times for fabricator customers who can order from stock.

And new extrusion lines at the manufacturing facility in Blaenau, have also greatly improved overall production capacity.

A sixth co-extrusion line became operational in November 2022, with a new mono line introduced in December. These come hot on the heels of an additional double-sided lamination line and bolsters Rehau’s ability to respond to growing demand for both white and foiled product.

According to Rehau, 35-40% of its profile is now laminated, a volume that’s been driven upwards through increasing consumer trends for premium products and heritage style flush casements.

For Gwyn Jones, plant director at Blaenau, the expansion has also been combined with an overhaul of production lines that have resulted in more efficient processes as well as paving the way for three new projects in 2023.

“We’ve also bolstered our workforce in order to support the running of our lamination lines five days a week,” he explains. “The most technically experienced senior operators have been promoted to team leaders to ensure a dedicated team leader in lamination is available on each shift.”

This last point highlights that fact that Rehau’s recent investments do not just apply to machinery, transport or production processes, they also extend to the people at the heart of all the operations.

The company has strong ties with Careers Wales to introduce new people to the industry and focuses on providing a clear career development within the business. Gwyn, for example, started as an apprentice electrician at the plant 30 years ago, and has recently been promoted from production and logistics manager to his new role.

It is impressive to see such wide-ranging investments from Rehau, and even more so when you consider that the company has also been heavily focused on new product development, including for example the Artevo high performance window system and Slinova sliding patio doors that were showcased at the innovative World of Windows expo in 2022.

Combined with such a firm commitment to recycling, sustainability and service it should also be highly encouraging for Rehau’s UK customer base.