Operations Management Paper

Words: 1832
Pages: 8

Saint-Gobain Containers

Andrew Vaccarezza
Ryan Russell
05/17/2007

INTRODUCTION 3
BACKGROUND 3
STUNNING FIGURES 4
OPERATIONS OF THE GLASS MAKING PROCESS 5
RAW MATERIALS 5
MELTING 6
CONDITIONING 6
FORMING 7
ANNEALING 8
INSPECTION 9
PACKAGING 10
CONCLUSION 10 Introduction

Saint-Gobain Containers is one of the leading glass packaging companies for the food and beverage industry. Employing over 4,000 people and having 14 locations in North America, Saint-Gobain Containers has shown to be one of the main leaders of its industry. Ranking number one in the European market and number two worldwide, Saint-Gobain Containers has shown to have a superb base of Operations Management. Having a good chain of Operations
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The glass is forced through this spout with a plunger and special scissors are used to cut the glass into segments of molten glass called gobs. These gobs are more manageable then a continuous supply of molten glass used in the past. Simplifying this process into these three simple steps helped consistency, efficiency, cost, and quality of Saint-Gobain Containers products.
Forming
The next step in the glass making process is to transform these gobs of molten glass into a final product. This part of the process is performed at the bottle machine. Because Saint-Gobain processes such large orders they have began to run these gobs to multiple bottle machines at once so they can cut down on production time and setup costs. The bottle machines then take each gob simultaneously and create a hollow space in the gob of glass. This hollow gob is called a parison. The parison then travels to the second stage of the bottle machine where a second blowing technique forms the bottle into its final shape. During this whole process a team of employees monitor everything from temperature to rhythm and speed of the machines from a control room located conveniently above the bottle machine. All of these very important aspects of this process are controlled by