Still Seeing Future In Glass

In the 1920s, the Hartford Empire Co. forever changed how glass containers were made, developing machines that did it faster, better and cheaper.

Some things don´t change over a century. Today, part of that old company, Emhart Glass, is building a $20 million research center in a booming commercial area of Windsor to develop glass-making technology for the 21st century, keeping the company competitive with the plastics and aluminum industries.

Emhart Glass, part of a Swiss conglomerate since 1998, plans to move 65 employees from Enfield, where its local administrative and sales office and a small laboratory are now located. Another 10 employees - mostly technicians - also will be hired. It is hoped that the new facility will be completed by the end of the year.

Emhart has deep roots in the state´s manufacturing past, although the company in Connecticut is greatly diminished from the hundreds of workers it once had. But the new research and technology center is the kind of development that state officials hope will spur future economic and job growth.

Technology-based companies often provide well-paid jobs and attract professionals to the state. "In technology circles, maintaining the link between technology and research and development is really important," said Matthew Nemerson, president and chief executive of the Connecticut Technology Council. "We love to see these new kinds of factories, state-of-the-art ways of doing things, in places that link scientists and customers."

For decades, Emhart has not had a place to adequately test its new techniques, forcing it to travel to customer manufacturing sites. About two-thirds of the new 58,000-square-foot facility on Great Pond Drive will be used for research; the rest will be for administrative offices. The "main driving force" behind the Windsor project is that Emhart "is actively developing glass-strengthening processes" so that containers not only can be made better, but also more quickly and less expensively, said Steven Pinkerton, vice president of research and development. One innovation the research staff has been working on when it comes to strength: dropping a bottle from 20 feet and not having it shatter. And even in the 21st century, there is a need for more automation, Pinkerton said.

As a company, Emhart Glass makes the machines and develops the technology to produce single-serving containers for such products as foods, beverages, perfumes, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. Even with a rise in the use of plastic, Emhart believes there is a strong market for glass - enough to justify a major investment in a new research center. "Our market studies show that people want to market premium products in glass," Pinkerton said, pointing to Samuel Adams beers and Snapple beverages, along with numerous "new-age drinks" as examples of glass-only packaging.

The challenge is keeping those beverages from migrating to plastic or aluminum containers. Key to the new Windsor facility is the capability to make, inspect, crush and reuse glass containers, Pinkerton said. Emhart Glass´ strong ties to Greater Hartford date from 1912, when the Hartford-Fairmont Co. on Arch Street in Hartford was founded. It was an outgrowth of the firm Lorenz and Honiss, which had developed a way to seal jars.

After a merger it became Hartford Empire Co., and later Emhart Corp. It would grow to become an international conglomerate with 32,000 employees worldwide, including 2,400 in several Connecticut subsidiaries. Black & Decker bought Emhart in 1989. Nine years later, in 1998, Black & Decker sold the Emhart Glass operations to Bucher Industries, based in Cham, Switzerland. A year after its purchase, Bucher ended Emhart´s manufacturing in Windsor, transferring the work elsewhere and leaving about 75 workers in administration and research.

In 2001, Emhart moved to Enfield from Windsor, where it had been for 25 years. The new facility, on Great Pond Road, will only be a few miles from the company´s original Windsor plant. Emhart´s selection of Windsor was driven by the area´s deep base of sandy soil. It was necessary to be able to dig an 18-foot basement below the glass-melting furnace to house cooling equipment, fans and conveyors.

The soil also makes development less expensive because blasting is not necessary - a key factor driving commercial growth in the Day Hill Road area of Windsor. The $7 million, German-built furnace will burn pure oxygen, as opposed to gas, and be capable of processing as much as 40 metric tons of glass a day. As much as 90 percent of the company´s experimental glass will be recycled. It will run through an automated system returning it to the furnace. Specialized, environmentally friendly technology, and water treatment equipment, also will be used.

"We´re going with the greenest materials we could find," Pinkerton said.