Press Glass has installed an additional tempering furnace at its Ridgeway, Virginia, facility. The furnace will increase the company’s tempered glass production capacity by 50%, according to company officials.
Investment in expansion
The tempering furnace addition follows Press Glass’ 2023 expansion announcement, where the company announced it would invest $155.2 million to expand its manufacturing facility in Ridgeway, which opened in 2020. The expansion includes a 360,000-square-foot addition to its existing facility, which also added 335 new jobs, more than doubling the company’s head count.
In January, the company invested in a convection control upgrade at its Ridgeway plant, helping to eliminate trapped air inside the layers that causes a lack of adhesion, as well as reduce remakes, raise on-time delivery to 98% and better manage production costs. Most of the tempering lines in Press Glass’s European facilities are from Glaston, and the tempering lines at the Ridgeway factory handle larger projects with an additional smaller line in Stoneville for smaller IGUs and heavier interior glass.
What the company says
“Our clients have trusted us and recognized the high quality of Press Glass products, so the expansion of the factory in Ridgeway is a natural step to increase the availability of our offerings and strengthen our position in the American market,” says Maciej Migalski, president, Press Glass Inc. “After the expansion, the Ridgeway plant will be one of the largest and most automated facilities processing architectural glass in the U.S. At the same time, we will create new, valuable job opportunities.”
About Press Glass
Founded in 1991 in Poland with a single line for insulating glass units, the company grew quickly during the next 10 years, exporting IGUs and then moving into commercial architectural glass. Press Glass is headquartered in Konopiska near Czestochowa, Poland, with 13 European factories throughout Europe.
To better accommodate customers in the U.S. and Canada, Press Glass acquired Glass Dynamics Inc., a glass fabricator in Stoneville, North Carolina, in 2017. Over the next three years, the company expanded its presence in the U.S. with the establishment of a 270,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility in Ridgeway, Virginia. Today, Press Glass has over 500 employees in the U.S.
