Expert Services for Safety Glass Industry

Safety Glass Experts offers training, diagnostic, consulting and tooling services for the safety glass industry. Company services are targeted for automotive and architectural glass manufacturers, glass processing equipment manufacturers as well as vehicle manufacturers seeking help with their vehicle glazing issues. “Our goal is to improve our clients know-how, skills and quality – doing this will increase efficiency and eventually leads to increased operating profit” Says Jori Jurttila. Company managing staff Pekka Kytösaho, Jori Jurttila and Mika Eronen comment their services and the latest developments in the industry.

Industry developments

Mika comments the industry latest development “The economical turmoil has created interesting possibilities for some producers in the passenger car windscreen industry. As the recession started demand of the car windscreen Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) parts decreased rapidly, ending up in closures of larger productions lines. In Europe it seemed that these partial and temporal closures of the larger OEM production lines slowly resulted into a short supply in the Automotive Replacement Glass (ARG) part markets and by now the most flexible producers which are capable of producing short series and guaranteeing short delivery times have taken the part of the ARG markets that the OEM lines used to supply. Taking parts of the market left by the OEM producers requires sophisticated manufacturing equipment, but also know-how and skilled personnel to successfully introduce new complex windscreen shapes into production with a demanding schedule.”



Bus and special vehicle sector has also suffered some decrease and our clients have reported generally some 20-35 % drop on the orders depending on the product category and market locations. By now the recession has affected the demand of agricultural vehicles and tour bus orders have probably dropped as well, but public transportation is still being financed and developed all over the world. Here in Europe the leading manufacturers of large and complex bus and special vehicle windscreens are losing some part of the markets for cheaper East European producers. They can still compete with quality, reliability of delivery, but this is changing slowly as the new rivals are taking parts of the markets.



Continuous and devoted development of the bending process is starting to pay off for these new rivals producing glass on the large and complex windscreen markets. The constructions glass sector has also plummeted, but the continuous development of energy efficient glass types, different coating solutions and customer’s increasing requirements for glass quality create challenges for all the flat glass processors. Up to date machinery along with skilled and committed staff are needed to produce quality products. Our training and consulting services for the construction glass sector are designed to help our clients to improve their existing processes, operator skills and efficiency. Ultimately we provide solutions for our clients to survive these difficult times and improve their position in the competitive markets.

Precise process temperature data

In addition to training and consulting services Safety Glass Experts International offers also unique Temperature Diagnostic services for the bending furnaces and autoclaves. Overall temperature conditions of the glass during bending process are often unknown.



The glass temperature in bending furnaces is usually monitored with a pyrometer, however pyrometers measure temperature only from particular area on the upper glass pair’s surface – unfortunately this temperature information is not suitable to estimate the overall temperature condition of the entire glass pair and uneven temperature balance often creates problems in optical qualities of the windscreens. To precisely measure temperature conditions from several locations during the process, data logger equipment is required with a telemetric data transfer which enables real time monitoring of the glass temperature conditions.

“With ten channel data logger equipment, suitable heat barrier and telemetry equipment we can provide our customers real time information of the heat conditions during the bending process, heating characteristics of the furnaces and their effects to products and also important data of the glass pair’s surface temperature from several locations that can’t be measured with the existing furnace automation. The gained temperature information can provide answers to breakages, optical issues, lamination problems and many others” – Operative field specialist Mika Eronen explains. “We provide our customers a possibility to gain in-depth knowledge of their individual bending furnaces process conditions and characteristics. These measurements can be carried out in autoclave processes too.”

Training for individual needs

Safety Glass Experts International provides Training services for the automotive and architectural glass manufacturers including variety of solutions for example: mold construction training, bending operator training, tempering operator training and quality inspection training. All the training services are tailored according to the individual needs of the clients.



Jori explains: “Skilled and devoted operators are playing a crucial role in the production lines. Sometimes people seem to think that a tour through the factory creates a professional bending or tempering furnace operator – Unfortunately this is not the case, training is needed. Even the older companies with skilled personnel and long history of developing glass processing know-how sometimes require external assistance to gain a step further developing their products and processes. Professional mold technicians are also hard to find and without quality tooling the bending process will fail. We provide training packages for the companies to develop their mold tooling fabrication. In addition to this we also deliver quality bending molds and checking fixtures”.

Expertise consulting to guarantee continuous development

Consulting services for both automotive and architectural glass producers can be applied to seek ways to improve existing processes, to diagnosising and solving process related production defects, to machinery upgrade and to investment consulting. “External expert view can offer an easier and cost effective solution, solving problems that might have seemed to be incurable.



Our company’s expertise and capability to use advanced measuring equipment helps clients to diagnose and solve their production related problems.”- Pekka Kytösaho says. Company provides also technical consulting services for the glass processing equipment manufacturers and vehicle manufacturers. “With the experience we have working with different equipment, we can help the new companies manufacturing glass processing equipment to develop their machinery. As a third solely independent party for the vehicle manufacturers we offer our expertise and knowledge to help with technical aspect of their windscreen supplier quality.“

Present state evaluation – a first step towards fruitful co-operation

As a first step towards fruitful co-operation Safety Glass Experts International offers their clients Present state evaluation services. “With Present state evaluation we provide our clients a possibility to get external expert view on their current production processes, an individual process or a production defect.

After on site evaluation, we will provide the client our independent and objective report on the findings and solution prescription how to improve current process or how to fix existing problems. During the evaluation visit on site, client has a chance to get to know us and our way of work. Finally armed with the report and our prescription for solutions, the client then can decide whether to proceed with us implementing the solutions we prescribed. Our company’s wide range of services guarantees many possibilities to improve the production. Two to three perfectly tailored training and consultative visits usually improve drastically the production yield levels, know-how and skills of the staff.” – Mika Eronen comments with the experience he has with working in the field training and consulting the automotive glass producers globally.

Jori Jurttila closes: “Whichever our client’s situation might be in these rapidly changing times continuous improvement is necessary and we do our best to provide our expertise and know-how to improve their position in the markets.”

For more information visit www.sge.fi or contact:

Safety Glass Experts International Oy Ltd

Seuratie 4 A 19

FI-21530 Paimio, FINLAND

Email: info@sge.fi

Phone:+358 400 979 300

Fax: +358 2 6518 2539