The visitors toured our UK5 float glass manufacturing line at Greengate – where we produce all glass stock used in Pilkington products – and our £36 million offline coater at Cowley Hill, which opened in October 2012.

The party was greeted by MD Matt Buckley and Mike Sharples, our off-line coatings operations manager, who talked through our latest product developments, research and development activities and plans for 2014.

Our offline coater applies a variety of technologically advanced coatings onto the glass, providing both energy-saving and solar control properties using a cutting-edge ‘sputter deposition’ process, which allows engineers to control the thickness of each coating with extreme precision.

Among the products we make at Cowley Hill is Pilkington K Glass™ S, our latest low-emissivity product. The microscopically thin coating we apply – much thinner than a human hair – minimises emission of thermal radiation from the outside of the window, reducing heat loss while maintaining a neutral look.

For further information on our product range visit: http://www.pilkington.com/en-gb/uk/products

[Blog post attributed to Tony Smith]