Southern Glass is a medium sized glass and aluminum fabricator situated near Hobart in the beautiful Australian Island State of Tasmania. The factory and office complex is situated overlooking the mouth of the River Derwent where it is not unusual to see whales breeching in the nearby waters, and penguins have been known to come ashore and wander through the car park.
Two factors which were uppermost in Zane's mind were reliability and energy usage. Tasmania being an island state is somewhat remote from the rest of Australia so reliability is paramount. Secondly power cost in Tasmania are very high so economical use of electricity is a number one concern. In service experience has backed up Zane's initial impressions of the LandGlass product.
As time went by it was found that a second glass toughening machine was needed to keep up with production and to service the ever increasing demand of advanced architectural glass products. So a decision was made to acquire a second furnace. Because of the excellent experience with the first LandGlass furnace it was natural that the second would also be a LandGlass. The second flat and bent bi-directional glass tempering furnace was installed in 2010 and included a bender which allowed Southern Glass to now offer a much more expanded range of architectural glazing options.
So far the Hobart factory has two LandGlass Furnaces running side by side producing first-class architectural glass with proven low production cost together with excellent reliability and economical running cost.
In 2005 Zane Wilson, the owner of Southern Glass and Glazing realized that developing trends in architectural glazing would mean that his business would need to acquire a glass toughening machine in order to keep abreast of, influence and lead the further develop these trends. It was a big step for Southern Glass, a business Zane had built from scratch.
Zane undertook a lot of research on toughening lines and eventually settled on a LandGlass machine. Not only was this Southern Glass' first toughener it was the first toughener to be installed in Tasmania. The LandGlass furnace allowed Southern Glass to enter a new phase in its development and as a result Southern were able to capitalize on the growing demand for Toughened Glass in Tasmania which previously had to come from the mainland, which added hugely to cost and lead times.