SOFTWARE FOR GLASS

Unit Manufacturers

Glass Office was originally designed with sealed unit producers in mind and we have concentrated on building the most user friendly user interface on the market today.

Everyone in business needs orders. A Glass Office order can start life in several ways, it can by typed in, it can have been a previously entered quote, it may be copied from another job, or it can be imported electronically from another system – removing the need for re-typing.

For sealed unit makers, most jobs will start life as a manually keyed in order or as an imported order. Orders can be imported from all the major UK based window programs, and also from up and downstream suppliers/customers, using other products. Importing orders electronically can save huge amounts of keyboard time and will reduce keyboard errors. In this way, Glass Office is working with you, not against you.

When the customer confirms his order, an order acknowledgement based on his bespoke prices can be sent to the customer for his signature and approval. If there are accompanying Georgian or Diamond/Square leaded layouts these can be sent off to the customer for approval. Any drawings (DXF CAD images) can also be sent to the customer, for example those for glass conservatory roofs. All of the above can be done by email, as well as traditional post or fax.

When the signed order acknowledgement is received back from the customer, the job can be scheduled for production. If you buy in toughened (tempered) glass, then a separate toughened purchase order for just the toughened single glazed leaves can be printed (or exported electronically).

Some IGU manufacturers will then print a works order for the factory

The glass can either be made on a job by job basis, for smaller manufacturers, or larger ones will want to optimise the glass in batches. The glass optimiser can help with sophisticated racking whilst still providing good yield and utilisation of the optimised sheets of glass. A label can be printed for every unit.

For example, you may wish to separate the annealed and toughened glass into different racks, and you may want all the glass that will be leaded to be together on one trolley, so that it can be taken to the leading department. If you have a spacer bending machine, you may want to rack in spacer type sequence, etc. All of this and more can be accommodated by the glass optimiser.

Orders can be tracked through the factory with the barcoding module. This will keep track of where all the items of an order are, and can help with factory loading. Once at despatch, the units can be ‘tied’ to a delivery vehicle, so they can’t be loaded on to the wrong transportation (the barcode gun will beep and show a red light if you try to put the wrong unit on the wrong vehicle).

The driver is issued with both delivery notes and a delivery manifest, detailing the drops he has to make, and any COD monies he has to collect.

All of the paperwork generated above can be scanned back into Glass Office, so that you have a permanent record of what was done and you won’t, therefore, need to keep masses of paper records, which are difficult to search through.

Glass Office has the ability with it’s filter to search, so you can find any piece of glass or unit with minimal information, for example, find any Diamond Leaded Units we supplied during the last 6 months that are 500 x 700 +/- 50mm. This, combined with scanning of documents, will make it easy to find old orders, and will reduce the amount of time and space needed to keep old printed records.

IGU customer case studies

Vehicle Loading Monitor

SOFTWARE FOR GLASSWe've recently launched a new Glass Office option "Vehicle Loading Monitor" to help you to scan items onto your vans and make sure nothing gets missed.  The loading monitor uses the existing barcoding module and shows the progress of the loading...

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Tailored solution for Twinseal

Tailored solution for Twinseal   Leading edge processing and planning software has the potential to offer glass processors and IGU manufacturers massive efficiency gains, but can it also be flexible? Glass Times reports.   “We have two IGU lines and two...

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Software key to Birchdale advances

"With the assistance of Clear Thinking, we have now moved our production capabilities to the next level....". Birchdale Glass of Uxbridge in West London, started manufacturing double glazed units in 1992 and were based in a 7,000 sq ft. factory with little more than a...

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The Future’s bright for this Mansfield company

"Malcolm and his team are not just keeping pace with our plans, they have brought some innovative shop floor ideas to the table and are contributing to our growth rather than just keeping pace...”   One of the most recent success stories for Clear Thinking has been an...

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Padiham Glass – a glass act!

"...all of Clear Thinking's help has meant that changing the most fundamental part of our business (the software) was a painless experience.” Clear Thinking have recently implemented their 'sub batching' glass optimisation software at Padiham Glass. "We thought that...

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Expansion for Double R, Wellingborough

"Clear Thinking liaised closely with GED... The software system has paid for itself many times over, the support team are very responsive, the program has proved to be very flexible and reliable...." Double R Glass and Roofing Systems Ltd of Wellingborough have been a...

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Tudor Glass invests in the future

"We were looking for a software vendor who would supply a flexible and cost effective system that can change to meet our ever changing and expanding needs, but we wouldn't have to buy everything at day one, so we can build on the software as we grow." When times are...

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Glassline make further investments

"...huge material savings and streamlined production.." Glassline Ltd one of the UK's leading independent sealed unit manufacturers, based in East Sussex has made further investments in software solutions from reputed provider, Clear Thinking Software. As part of a...

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Sealing the Deal

"...75% reduction in glass wastage at the cutting table"Established in 1973, Glas-Seal based in Ballynahinch, Co. Down, was the first company in Ireland to manufacture hermetically sealed double glazing units. Today Glas-Seal produces over 1000 DG units per day,...

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