AGC’s Architectural Glass Division is seeing a growing demand for ‘wellbeing’ in buildings. People are increasingly looking for safety, security, acoustic comfort, daylight and high-performance glazing. To ensure its production capacity is in line with customers’ growing and more sophisticated needs, AGC decided to invest in the EU’s biggest market, Germany, which has significant growth prospects for laminated-safety glass (thanks to the recently updated German standard DIN 18008) and solid fundamentals. AGC’s Osterweddingen plant is strategically located in the heart of Europe, between the DACH markets (Germany Austria and Switzerland) and Central Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary).
The new laminating line will also help optimise truck transport across Europe, further reducing AGC’s carbon footprint by saving 1,100 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year.
With this investment, Osterweddingen will become a fully integrated plant, where the standard and extra-clear glass produced by the existing float line can then be transformed into added-value products on the coater, on the processing lines for solar applications, and on the new laminating line. With this large capacity state-of-the-art laminating line, AGC will be equipped with a flexible tool, able to produce the full laminated product range, from the DLF “Tailor Made Size” up to the Jumbo “XXL size,” with or without high-performance coatings.
Enrico Ceriani, VP Primary Glass, AGC Glass Europe commented, “At AGC we make customers part of our everyday thinking, focusing on their own expectations and needs. This strategic investment meets the increasing demand for well-being at home, at the workplace and everywhere else. The unrivalled beauty of glass is that features, such as safety, security, acoustic and energy-saving glazing, always go hand in hand with transparency, enabling people to feel connected with their surrounding environment at all times.”
The new laminating line should enter service by the end of 2023. Preparatory works in the plant have already begun.