With New Facility Comes New Niche for Barber Glass Industries - Large Sizes to be Available

Barber Glass Industries Inc. in Guelph, Ontario is making plans to expand to a second facility. The company has secured 170,000 square feet of industrial space approximately 90 minutes north of Toronto, in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada.

While Barber Glass already offers laminated, tempering and silkscreened products, with its new facility it will soon be able to offer these and other products on a larger scale.

"We've extensive experience with these technologies in our current facility, up to 96 inches high by 144 inches wide," says Michael D. Wellman, vice president of sales and marketing of Barber Glass Industries. "Now we are focusing on adding insulating glass to our product offering and going to 130-by-240 inches across the board."

In addition to its oversize capabilities, the company will add insulating glass products to its line, as well as back painting.

Wellman explained that customer demand led to the new expansion, but planning ahead brought the company to examine oversize lites.

"A couple of our long-time customers have been working on projects that required these new technologies. On the basis of their confidence in working with us, we decided to move forward with our plans for expansion," Wellman says. "Current trending in the European market involves greater use of oversize products and we are beginning to see more architectural use of such products over here in North America. We feel that we can develop a strong niche in this area of the market which we believe is currently underserviced."

The new facility is currently expected to be fully operational by January 1, 2009.

CLICK HERE to read the company's announcement of the expansion.

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