SUSTAINED SUCCESS POWERS CUSTOM GLASS PRODUCTS’ PLANNED $2M EXPANSION.
(Mooresville, NC, August 16, 2016) “IF YOU CAN DRAW IT, WE CAN MAKE IT.” This has been the proud proclamation and corporate policy of Custom Glass Products (CGP), ever since its 1971 founding. What CGP’s customers draw, and CGP makes in boundless variety, are custom-made window and door components: glass, frames, grids, and grilles designed to make windows and doors more beautiful, durable, energy-efficient, value-enhancing, and easier to maintain and enjoy.
“Our unlimited design flexibility has proven so attractive to our customers – architects, contractors, distributors, and manufacturers,” notes Steve Reeder, CGP president, “we have decided to expand our production capacity by about 25% – not because we are running at or beyond our comfortable capacity – but so we can gracefully and responsively handle daily swings in our customer requirements, while continuing to fulfill our Just In Time commitments, and making sure that no building or project ever has an empty opening when our products are desired and expected. At CGP, we like to say, ‘Wherever the light comes in, we come in.’ This being so, just precisely when our products come in can make all the difference to everyone we serve.”
To maintain and enhance CGP’s industry-leading service levels and THREE-day turnaround times, Reeder explains, the company is embarking on an ambitious expansion. With its present plant running tight on space, and to support its plans to add a soon-to-be-introduced new product line, CGP anticipates investing approximately 2 million dollars over the next two years in space and equipment, streamlining existing process lines and adding a new product manufacturing center. In its expansion, CGP will add some processes internally that are currently outsourced, enabling the company to exercise better control over those processes on-site.
“We have been planning for this for some time,” reveals Reeder, “just waiting on the economy and prospects to grow the business. We had originally purchased 10 acres in 1988 so we have plenty of land to grow on. We are putting up a separate building so it has more of a campus feeling to it while enabling us to accommodate processes that differ from those we already utilize in our main facility in the new space .”
CGP’s longstanding corporate values – green practices and close community ties – are woven through its expansion plans. “For example, we’ve always pursued and practiced ecological good stewardship,” says Reeder, pointing out that all of CGP’s products, including window grilles, are recyclable, and its popular, patented Decralite® decorative window grids are made from 100% recycled material, and all of CGP’s products, glass, plastic, spacers, and residuals from manufacturing are recycled.
Not surprisingly, CGP’s expansion involves a green contractor, along with partnering with green organizations such as Energy Star, LEED, Architects Council, Millwork Distributors, ASTM, Efficient Windows Collaborative, Fenestration Canada, CSA International, DOE.gov, Installation Masters Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-Windows & Daylighting Group, National Fenestration Rating Council, National Glass Association, The Vinyl Institute, Window & Door Dealers Alliance, Window & Door Manufacturers Association, and Window Covering Manufacturers Association.
Another green aspect of CGP’s expansion is the additional company paychecks slated to flow into the community when CGP adds the 15 new employees it anticipates hiring in the next two years.
“This shows our commitment to our local economy and confidence in our local work force,” Reeder said. “The community has been good to us; we’ve got low turnover, great perceived quality, and a genuinely happy, close-knit productive team who consistently ship out great products in just five days. What’s not to love about that? Our expansion expresses our love for this area and its great people. We believe that shared success is the sweetest, and we salute all our proudly local homegrown team who are helping us toward strong and steady growth.”
