Member Article

Glass specialists invest over £500k to meet demand

Sheffield based independent research, test and design specialist, Glass Technology Services Ltd (GTS), has completed a £500K investment programme to meet increasing demand throughout the glass supply chain.

The two-year programme has seen GTS invest in new plant, equipment, people and training to keep it at the forefront of research, product development, quality and performance testing, failure investigation and issue resolution for its growing worldwide client base.

Typically, the company supports global manufacturers, processors and manipulators, fillers, brand owners, retailers, architects, building contractors and consulting engineers to ensure that their products meet all the required and pending standards for export across the world. Also steering compliance with regional legislative requirements, it serves the glass, automotive, food and drink, construction, retail, medical, pharmaceutical, security, defence and biotech sectors.

GTS commercial director, Malcolm Glendenning, said: “We have grown our team of specialists by more than 25%. Material sciences, physics, chemistry and mechanical engineering graduates, established industry authorities and apprentices have all been recruited to work alongside our leading technical experts, who have some 380 years’ combined industry experience.

“Investment in the latest technology and infrastructure means we’re better equipped to respond to manufacturing issues and make recommendations about improved product performance, legislative requirements and quality standards. With speed frequently of the essence, many of the services we provide can now be offered on the same or next day.”

The latest investments allow GTS to extend its fragment analysis services beyond glass – to plastics, metals and both manufactured and naturally occurring minerals – expanding on the foreign body identification and investigation services already provided across the many sectors.

They have led to major consultancy and project commissions, including an assessment of the existing and potential glass recycling infrastructure in the Russian Federation. There are also collaborations with leading universities and businesses to develop new coatings for glass products and inventive compositional development for specialist applications across bio-materials, photonics and optical devices.

GTS has also been awarded numerous grants to develop new products, including the development of specialist fibres used for the treatment of bone trauma, eye-safe laser imaging sensors for long-range operation, 3D printing and specialist bio-compatible glasses for organic implants.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Gatehouse .