Pilkington
Pilkington Group Limited is a UK company that operates in the field of glass manufacturing and processing since 1826. It was used until 1970 and privately owned until 2006 a corporation. The shares were traded on the London Stock Exchange. After the takeover by Nippon Sheet Glass ( NSG), the company was taken by the Exchange.
History
The breakthrough was reached, the company with the invention of the float glass process in which the approximately 1000 ° C hot glass is passed through a column filled with liquid tin bath. This first time it was possible to produce glass panels with high-precision plane-parallel surfaces that have no previous grinding and polishing a trouble-free optics. This was a revolutionary innovation compared with the machine- drawn glass before usual.
This invention was the beginning of a continuous growth. Today Pilkington employs 24,000 employees and sells its products to approximately three billion GBP. Revenues are ever scored in half with automotive and architectural glass.
1986 acquired the business Pilkington glass from Libbey -Owens - Ford.
The headquarters of the company is the Middle English St Helens ( between Manchester and Liverpool). Since July 2010 Craig Naylor is President & CEO of the company.
In March 2006, the Board of Pilkington plc recommended the shareholders to accept one of the Japanese glass manufacturer NSG (Nippon Sheet Glass ) pronounced bid. On 19 April 2006, the shareholders approved the proposal at an extraordinary general meeting.
The German Pilkington subsidiary focused on the manufacture of float glass Optifloat ( in the works Gladbeck and Weiherhammer ) of refined semi-finished and profiled Profilit ( Bauglasindustrie GmbH, melting ) and in the production of fire-resistant glass ( Pyrostop and Pyrodur ). An innovation is the glass Pilkington Activ dar. It has self-cleaning properties, which are caused by a special coating on the outside. In the automotive sector Pilkington is one of the world's biggest manufacturer, both for the original equipment ( OEM) as well as for the supply of spare parts (AGR ).
The locations in Germany: Gelsenkirchen, Gladbeck, ponds hammer, melting, Witten, Aachen, Braunschweig and Wesel and four sales offices in Neu-Isenburg (near Frankfurt), Stuttgart, and Munich Güglingen. Pilkington is since 1980 the mother of the flat glass AG.
In Austria, the company has a location in Graz and a production plant in iron ore, which was closed in April 2012. The headquarters of Pilkington Austria Austria GmbH is located in Bischofshofen.
In Switzerland, Pilkington was represented in Wikon, tuna and Münchenbuchsee. In Wikon and tuna insulating glass was mainly produces and in Münchenbuchsee fire-resistant glass and toughened glass assemblies were prepared. In July 2009, the Swiss sites were taken over by the Bavarian flat glass Wernberg.
Current companies developments
In November 2007 the European Union imposed by EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes against the company a fine of 140 million euros. Pilkington was involved in an international cartel with the Guardian from the United States, AGC from Japan and Saint Gobain of France, had made the illegal price-fixing for building glass.
In November 2008, against the same glass cartel, this time extended by the Belgian company Soliver, a renewed fined due to price -fixing, in this case in the area of automotive glass, fixed. Been determined for Pilkington share of the fine ( total: € 1.35 billion ) amounted to 370 million euros.
On 31 December 2009 the factory in Braunschweig was closed.
Location float glass works Weiherhammer
The plant in pond hammer is one of the largest flat glass plants in Germany with a daily production of 1600 tons and a workforce of 560 people.