Austrian Stlzle Oberglas acquired the ex-Rockware glass facility in Knottingley, UK, in 1994, with the aim of making the facility the flagship of its prestige spirits and health and beauty division, e…
Austrian Stlzle Oberglas acquired the ex-Rockware glass facility in Knottingley, UK, in 1994, with the aim of making the facility the flagship of its prestige spirits and health and beauty division, even after a temporary shutdown in production due to the recession, in May 2009. “Since the end of the 1990s, one of the strong trends has been for more premium products,” says Neil Robson, sales director for prestige spirits and design. “The container is more than just a bottle to put your wares in – it is key to the image of the brand.” One of the most important decisions was to bring forward the rebuilding of the furnace by 12 months from the scheduled 2010/2011 date, along with investing in cold-end equipment and a new in-house mould shop, officially opened in June this year. “The quicker you can bring a customer a product sample, the quicker you can convince them you are the right supplier for them,” says chief executive Johannes Schick. Furthermore, all products are custom-made. The other aim of the refit was that of doubling the decoration facilities and reorganizing them to include state-of-the-art machinery. “The marketplace has changed. More and more decoration goes on the bottle and that is the primary focal point for the consumer,” says Mark Devonald Smith, sales director for perfumery and personal care. The new furnace was built over a 42-day period around Christmas 2009, and production began in January 2010. The five production lines can each make between 55,000 and 100,000 bottles a day. The decoration facility now includes a Techno six-colour automatic printing machine, two organic spray machines with a capacity of 28 bottles a minute, and automatic etching machinery for a high-quality finish. “For luxury bottles, we needed to find a good way to bring costs down to a reasonable level,” says Schick. STF says it is now the only glass factory in the UK to have a hot-foil stamping system to decorate bottles. Further investments also included new quality control systems in the cold end. The changes and developments that have taken place are not just good for the company, but also for the group as a whole and the region the plant is located in, says Schick. “But, above all, our employees now work in an environment that encourages their endeavours to ensure that all our glass containers, whether decorated or not, are perfect when they leave our plant.” According to Schick, Stlzle is continuing to invest in Knottingley and has plans to buy conveying and packing robots to streamline the process, to be installed in the first half of 2011.