Emhart Glass, a division of Bucher Industries and the world’s leading supplier of glass container forming machines and equipment, and Owens-Illinois, Inc., (O-I) the world’s leading maker of glass containers, have agreed that Emhart Glass will become preferred supplier to O-I for glass forming machines and parts to all of O-I’s plants around the globe.
Yesterday, Emhart Glass and O-I signed an agreement that names Emhart Glass as its preferred supplier of glass forming machinery and equipment to all of O-I’s 79 plants, which include more than 400 production lines for the manufacture of glass containers. O-I’s plants are located in 21 countries.
Emhart Glass was selected by O-I due to Emhart Glass’ extensive technical skills, its global presence, its state of the art production facilities in Europe, the U.S. and Asia and its research centre in Windsor, Conn., USA. Under the agreement, Emhart Glass will supply machines, equipment and components used in the glass container forming process, as well as related spare parts. A dedicated joint engineering team will be formed to further enhance and develop the glass forming equipment in line with O-I requirements.
The two companies have a long-standing positive relationship and will both benefit from this concept. Emhart Glass will be able to increase its production and the capacity utilization of its facilities in Europe and Asia, all of which will benefit from higher volumes. O-I will obtain machinery and equipment at favourable costs and will receive a consistent level of high quality service for its worldwide container forming lines. In addition, O-I will no longer need to maintain the infrastructure for in-house machine manufacturing. The implementation of the agreement with O-I is expected to gradually generate additional sales of more than CHF 50 million to Emhart Glass’ annual sales with full effects felt from 2015 onwards.
