Clear vision Press-Glass

CLEAR VISION

The Polish company Press-Glass SA is Europe’s leading producer of processed glass for the construction industry. The company’s glass is an essential element of many striking public buildings both in Poland and Scandinavia, and last year it introduced a new corporate identity.

Since its foundation in 1991, PressGlass has experienced extraordinarily dynamic growth. At the beginning, it had only six employees. Today, there are more than 1400 people working for PressGlass, and the company’s glass can be found in many landmark buildings including the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw and the Sky Tower in Wrocław, which is still under construction.

The headquarters of Press-Glass and the company’s main factory are located in Nowa Wies, in the south west of Poland. In 2001, Press-Glass acquired a second factory in Tychy, near Katowice, which specialises in the production of toughened glass. Following the takeover, Press-Glass built a new production hall for the Tychy site, 12,000 m2 in area. The firm pressed on with its expansion, building a third factory in Tczew in 2003 to produce double-glazed glass.

The company built its newest factory in 2009 on a six-hectare site in Radomsko. Its aim is to continuously adapt to customer needs to strengthen its leading position in glass processing for the construction sector in Europe. In line with this, in January 2012 it introduced a fresh new corporate identity and logo to symbolise its constant dedication to progress and innovation. Range of products

Press-Glass’s product offering for the many and varied needs of the construction industry includes glazed units, special glass and single glass. Its glazed units include low emission glass, units with warm edge, solar control glass, safety and security glass, acoustic glazed units, bullet-proof glass and fireresistant glass. The company’s Premium Edge solution is an eco-friendly glazed unit that tightly connects the entire perimeter of a glass unit, thus protecting the user against loss of heat from the inside and against noise from the outside. The Premium Edge unit has a spacer made of silicone foam, which

means it can be used across a wide range of temperatures, down to minus -40°C.

In the last few years, Press-Glass has introduced several interesting additions to its special glass range. The company produces laminated glass for windows, facades and partition walls. With a Benteler glass laminating line and Scholz autoclave, the company can now produce layered panes in-house. It runs a state-of-the-art line for laminated glass. This machinery allows the company to connect different types of glass, like toughened glass, to the laminated glass, for applications such as beams, columns or glass staircases.

In addition to the above, there is also a need for single-glazed glass for various applications in the construction industry. This product is less processed than double glazed glass and is cut to the required dimensions on the base of the following types: float glass, tinted glass, reflective and hard-coated glass.

Digital print

While strength and durability are important attributes of the company’s toughened glass, architects also require an attractive visual effect. Press-Glass therefore also offers its

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Premium Toughened glass, designed for the facades of buildings. The Premium Toughened glass was developed to avoid the problem of ‘roller waves’, which create a distorted reflection in the glass. To solve this problem, PressGlass makes the glass using an air bag, on which the glass is positioned at an angle. The rollers will then only touch the panel on one side, so that no waviness will be visible once the glass is used on the exterior of a building.

Press-Glass also makes glass that can be digitally printed. The company’s Digital Print glass, introduced in 2011, is ideally suited for displaying a corporate logo on the internal wall of a company’s office. The process for printing is automatic: once the company receives the photo, it can prepare the digital graphic file and then print the image onto the glass. With Digital Print, no additional processes are needed. This avoids extra costs for the customer and ensures that the job is carried out as quickly as possible.

Prospects

The new production hall for the factory at Radomsko was completed last year. This represented a substantial investment, but Press-Glass believes its confidence is justified. Denmark and Norway are valuable export markets because they are major producers of windows, and in Scandinavia there is a lot of investment in public buildings, which need glass facades.

In Poland, too, the prospects have been encouraging. Renewable energy has also been an important focus for the business over the past year or two – particularly solar glass, which will remain a priority in the coming years. n