Specialist Glass Products has grown from a small start-up, to a leading manufacturer of advanced glazing solutions.
Beginning in 2003, in Huddersfield, Specialist Glass Products opened its doors as a ‘cold start’ business with just three employees. Today, the company has gone from strength-to-strength with over 100 employees, a state-of-the-art factory, and multiple million-pound investments into glass manufacturing machinery.
Specialist Glass Products’ growth is defined by a willingness to invest ahead of the curve. In 2008, SGP made its first major investment of £1 million in the purchase of a glass toughening machine and its first automated cutting and processing equipment.
Just ten years later, came the investment in a new building, now 70,000ft2, along with two new toughening furnaces and additional cutting and processing equipment.
Lindsey Fallon, head of sales & marketing, says:
“We’ve built the business to handle everything from straightforward flat glass right through to much larger, more complex projects, including oversized and curved glass.
“Because we manufacture all of our products in-house and can process glass up to 6m, our customers know they can rely on us to deliver consistently, even on the more challenging jobs.”
The most significant recent investment came in the form of the Systron proHD vertical glass processing machine at a cost of £1.2 million. As the first jumbo-sized machine of its kind in the UK market, the Systron allows SGP to polish, drill, and wash glass up to 6m x 3.2m, which is a unique service within the UK market.
The machine is multi-functional, capable of producing cutouts, holes, and bespoke profiles in virtually any shape, while its capacity to produce 120 fully-finished panels per day supports both high-volume production and complex repeat bespoke designs. For projects that demand identical units at scale, this is a significant advantage in terms of lead times and consistency.
SGP’s capabilities extend across the full spectrum of structural glass. The company can toughen, laminate, and double-glaze panels up to 6m x 3.2m, while its curved glass offering, enabled by a glass-bending machine, reaches sizes up to 5,000mm x 3,200mm. Heat ovens are designed specifically to protect curved glass from breakage during processing, which is a consideration that matters significantly at these dimensions.
Toughened laminated glass is another area of strength. By combining toughened glass with more than one interlayer material, SGP produces panels that deliver exceptional impact resistance alongside enhanced safety and performance, which is a specification increasingly demanded by architects and specifiers on commercial and high-end projects.
The factory’s cutting line is equipped with automatic loading and retrieval for oversized structural glass, allowing SGP to cut, toughen, and laminate panels up to 6,000mm x 3,210mm. Vertical and horizontal CNC machines handle intricate profiles across units of any size, while a double or triple-glazed unit provides a tailored solution for commercial, retail and residential applications where thermal and acoustic performance is critical.
Some standout projects include the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, which featured 6,000 curved and flat laminated glass panels, as well as supplying 24 bespoke panels of 8mm Visiosun toughened glass, for the Tonwell Tower in Hertfordshire. SGP also supplied a range of curved glass units, including 12.8mm acoustic laminated (with Face 4 Coolite 183) and 10.8mm acoustic laminated glass for The Globe Point in Leeds.
Every product is manufactured in-house to ensure precision. Allowing for the flexibility to take on complex, specification-driven work. It is a capability that now serves architects, designers, and contractors across the UK and overseas.
