Sedak, based in Gersthofen, Germany has recently installed a fully automated insulating glass line.
More efficient production processes while maintaining constantly high quality standards underpin sedak’s leading position in the industry of oversize glass units. The custom-designed machinery enables sedak to produce insulating glass units of up to 15m. “The manufacturing time has been reduced and insulating glass units are therefore even more economical,” said sedak CEO Bernhard Veh.
Sedak has established itself as a technological pioneer for glass in oversize formats up to 3.2m x 15m. It produces oversize insulating and safety glass with almost any kind of treatment for the global market: processed, tempered, laminated, printed, coated, and processed further into insulating glass. Until now, large insulating glass units have been fabricated manually in a time-consuming process.
The new insulating glass line automates the production process completely. That leads to high quality standards and a fabrication that can be reproduced. “The biggest advance is the radical reduction of the production time. Insulating glass used to be fabricated manually by several qualified employees over various days. Now, the total production needs less than an hour,” said General Manager Ulrich Theisen. Since producing insulating glass has thus become more cost-effective, sedak units are even more competitive. “Due to efficiently created designs and short construction times, oversize glass units have been profitable before. This cost-effectiveness has been increased now,” says Ulrich Theisen.
With a length up to 145m and a load capacity of 450kg per linear meter, the fully-automated insulating glass line is the largest in the world.
Added to efficiency and quality, perfect aesthetics are now easily reproducible. Positioning the spacers accurate to a millimetre, especially on ceramic-ink printed insulating glass units, allows flawless transitions. Glass units stepped on all four sides are a special feature. On the bottom edge, steps of 700mm are possible. Therefore sedak can realize homogeneous façades with precise, especially narrow joints. Structures simply disappear behind the glass. “Transparent, aesthetic facades have become a trend in architecture during the last few years. Now, they can be manufactured more quickly, economically and reliably,“ Bernhard Veh said. In connection with the ceramic-ink digital printing technology for oversize glass units, a technology which is still new, sedak offers a worldwide unique range of glass products.
To be able to produce the world’s biggest glass units, particularly the weight of insulating glass consisting of several panes impresses, takes big machinery. A complex, oversize unit weighs up to 7t. Sedaks new machine can handle loads of 450kg/m, and the production line has a total length of 145m.