Work began in September on a new £4M facility at NGF Europe, which will make the Lea Green site the first fully-integrated high tensile strength glass cord manufacturing factory in Europe and the only such facility outside Japan. Growth in the market for high tensile strength glass cord is being driven by technological developments in the automotive market. The new fibre-forming line, scheduled to come on-stream June 2013, will enable the Lea Green site to manufacture the filament from raw materials and reduce its dependency on filament delivery from MSG in Japan, shortening production times and reducing transport costs. The investment will create 24 new jobs and has been made possible by a £500,000 Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative grant, part of the UK Regional Growth Fund. The St Helens business was developed in the 1970s by Pilkington, sold to NSG in 1991, and reunited with its former Pilkington colleagues via the NSG acquisition in 2006. NSG also has glass cord manufacturing sites in Guelph, Canada, Tsu in Japan and Suzhou in China. As the only Technical Glass operation in the whole of Europe, NGF Europe is effectively already a regional SBU. "There have been changes at most senior level in Japan," said Marketing Manager Colin Hamand. "The issues surrounding regionalisation, which have affected the other SBUs in the UK, are part of the way we have always operated."
