Cornwall Group invests £3m+ in three new toughening furnaces

Cornwall Group has made a one-in-a-generation investment in three new state-of-the-art Glaston Tempering Furnaces, representing more than £3m, with each going to different sites within the Group. The first furnace will be installed at Forward Glass in Birmingham in the spring 2025, and demonstrates the commitment the group has to ongoing investment, Cornwall Group’s Chairman Mark Mitchell said.

“We believe this is the first time in at least a generation that an order for three furnaces was placed simultaneously,” Mark said. “Which goes a long way to proving how committed we are to ongoing investment within Cornwall Group.

 “We’ve got an eye on investment that will take us well into the second half of this decade,” he said. “We are not looking for short-term gains. Instead, we are looking for long-term stability, which will give our customers confidence to look for new opportunities.

“Without this longer-term view, we wouldn’t have invested in new high-speed IGU lines, a new heat soak oven, new cutting tables, new fleet, or indeed new colleagues. And if we didn’t have those assets, would we be as prepared as we are for an expected uptick in work in the first half of 2025?”

Mark explained that Cornwall Group has multiple furnaces over multiple sites, and it is crucial that they continue to be capable from a quality, speed, and environmental point of view.

“I think there are probably about 300 furnaces in the UK,” he said. “So we’ve probably got 2% of all the UK’s furnaces. There clearly needs to be a programme of renewal because it would be quite prohibitive to replace all of them in the same year.

“A less than perfect furnace could result in sub-standard product, a bottle neck in our factories, or excess energy being wasted fuelling them. In fact, energy costs have soared in recent years, and have been quite volatile. Persisting with machinery that reduces your control over your ongoing costs puts you at a disadvantage, and removes a layer of control. As a result, we’ve been looking at more energy-efficient ways of toughening glass.”

Cornwall Group acquired Birmingham-based Forward Glass in December 2023, and is in the process of aligning its operations with the other companies in the group.

The new toughening furnace represents half of the planned investment in Forward Glass, which will help it supply single toughened, processed glass and stock glass to the trade.

“Single toughened is a key part of what the group currently offers,” Mark said. “And our investment in that side of the business is critical moving forward.

“We see thicker glass products – 10mm, 12mm, 15mm and 19mm – becoming more popular. The are no longer considered special orders that you might do once in a blue moon. They’re day-to-day requests – almost a commodity product.

“Therefore, it is important that we stay ahead of the game in this regard.”