Throughout 2010, the Operations Team has been working on a significant project that has significantly improved the performance of our products. Our Next Dimension and Legend products have utilized our custom-made glazing for the past few years. The Windsor Glazing System (WGS) produces an extremely energy efficient, high quality insulated glass (IG) that is produced in both Windsor plants. This year, we converted our Pinnacle product line to the Windsor Glazing System.
Both the Windsor West Des Moines, Iowa, and Monroe, North Carolina, facilities have extensive insulated glass assembly lines. These identical lines were manufactured and installed by Lisec, a world class manufacturer of custom IG equipment. Each of these lines begins with a high volume glass cutting process. The cutting equipment is used to cut down large sheets of glass into the specific sizes needed for production. Cut glass is staged in production sequence and is then loaded onto the automated insulating line. On this line, the glass is washed, the spacer is automatically applied, argon is filled, and a final sealant of hot butyl is applied around the edge of the IG. This state-of-the-art automated process produces a very energy efficient and high quality IG.
The Windsor Glazing System uses the Super Spacer system from our supplier partner Edgetech. This spacer is an engineered foam system that eliminates any metallic material and reduces thermal conductivity. This results in a more thermally efficient IG. The WGS also utilizes sheet glass from Cardinal Glass. Cardinal supplies a large variety of glass thicknesses and types. They also supply the IG in the rare circumstance when Windsor is unable to produce the IG due to equipment size limitations.
This project required a large investment of resources across our entire company, including such things as increasing the shop floor staff and conducting a significant update to our information system. We are very proud of the resulting high quality, energy efficient window and door products.