Glass container manufacturer Owens-Illinois has officially opened its new combined R&D and pilot plant facility, the Innovation Center, at its global headquarters in Perrysburg, Ohio.
The 24,000ft2 facility is expected to help the company to advance new concepts in glass production and qualify emerging technologies revolutionizing the melting and forming glass process.
According to the company, the facility has a 20mt oxy-fueled furnace, two production lines and inspection equipment and is said to be about one-tenth the size of a typical manufacturing plant.
One line will see the production of sample bottles and trials for new products, through an iterative process of ongoing improvement.
This is expected to cut down the time required to produce exactly the right bottle and minimizes disruption to the manufacturing plants.
Involving in R&D activities, the other production line will be used to develop new technologies and processes for melting and forming glass.
The innovation center team has already produced around 40 sample bottles for customers as well as internal development purposes, in its first eight months of operation, the company claims.
Owens-Illinois chairman and CEO Al Stroucken said innovation is a key component of the company's long term strategy.
"This Innovation Center demonstrates our belief in glass as the optimal packaging solution and our confidence that we can shift some of the paradigms around glass manufacturing," Stroucken added.
Owens-Illinois R&D global vice president Ludovic Valette said, "Through extensive collaboration among the R&D teams, others in the global technology organization, the product innovation team and manufacturing, we have significantly accelerated the pace by which we produce sample bottles for our customers and test changes in the production process."
Owens-Illinois, which had revenues of $7bn in 2013, employs around 22,500 people at 77 plants in 21 countries
