January / February 2008 — The historical touch of a button occurred on Sunday, September 30, 2007 when Steve Pinkerton, VP RD&E, switched on the 40 ton furnace in our new research center located in Windsor, CT, USA. This event marks another milestone in the strategy of Emhart Glass: to provide automation solutions to our customers, which goes far beyond the delivery of machines. This new plant will afford us the opportunity to develop and validate products and processes in an effort to support our customers in their quest for sustainable profitability, quality and increased market share – as expressed in our mission statement.

Our Technical Service unit helped us achieve yet another customer support milestone. In 2007, we were able to double the number of highly qualified glass production specialists employed by Emhart Glass. In doing so, we are much more capable of assisting our customers during and after the machine startup period in order to quickly achieve the desired production quality and speeds required by our customers.

The combined forces of ICS/Inex and Emhart Glass, now merged into Emhart Inex, enable us to offer an unrivalled Cold End product suite for both online and lab inspection needs. In addition, our Cold End Technical Service centers in Florida (USA), Spain and Malaysia now offer a new level of service and training programs to customers worldwide.

Thus we are prepared to meet the challenges of 2008, especially after accomplishing an all-time record sales in 2007. This is a result of the trust our customers place in us, for which we are truly grateful and do not want to take for granted. In 2008, we will continue to earn that trust by offering innovative solutions to meet the specific needs of our customers.

Martin Jetter
President