Hammerglass safens up giant's new machine cabs

Hammerglass is making life safer for more and more people. After working for many years on the creation of safer road and property environments using unbreakable glass solutions, the company is following up by making the working day safer for thousands of machine drivers around the world. Now, the construction machines of UK industrial giant JCB, as the world’s first construction machinery manufacturer, are being fitted with unbreakable Hammerglass as standard in the driver’s cabs.

Every year, more than 170,000 excavators and 100,000 wheel loaders are sold globally. The majority of the vehicle cabs are fitted with traditional glass screens as standard. These machines, which are used in every imaginable situation, are provided with toughened or laminated glass screens which offer minimal resistance to explosions and rockfall. The unprotected driver’s position clearly poses an enormous work environment risk, and in consequence related accidents take innocent lives every year. The unique composition of Hammerglass protects the machine driver against both falling rocks and boulders as well as from undetonated explosives.

Hammerglass AB in Förslöv, Sweden has for the last nine years been developing unbreakable solutions for construction machines and is currently the leading provider in Europe in its field. The company, which prioritises quality and safety, has invested close to 20 million SEK in product development, tests and certifications. As a result of this development work there are now safety glass solutions for the majority of excavators and loaders – both new and used.

The UK construction machinery giant JCB is becoming a pioneer in driver safety, thanks to its focus on offering unbreakable Hammerglass as standard in the driver’s cab in its site dumpers. Cooperation has been quietly continuing over the past four years, with Hammerglass and JCB engineers collaborating on the design of JCB’s new cab series – the first in fifteen years – in order to make optimum use of the advantages offered by Hammerglass.

A machine driver in a mining and quarrying environment leads a dangerous life. For rock blasting, use is made of charges which are designed to explode in a specific way in order to maximise the explosive effect. Unfortunately, not all the charges are always detonated, and some remain unexploded – duds – among the piles of rocks. When the machine driver then proceeds to work through or remove the rock piles, there is a significant danger that these duds will accidentally detonate, with the consequent risk of serious injury or fatality.

For Hammerglass, JCB’s orders represent an appreciable increase in turnover as new JCB models are fitted with Hammerglass.

Bengt comments on the new investment in personnel:

- We will grow gradually, but we reckon on taking on a few more staff in production, thanks to JCB’s investment. We have now taken the lead in a niche market, which in the long run will be enable us to turn over large volumes, so we see this as a first step on a long and exciting journey.

With the wind in its sails, Hammerglass is looking forward to ensuring a safer and safer workday for machine drivers, and to a time when more construction machine manufacturers follow in JCB’s footsteps.

- What is the cost of a life? I can’t actually see any valid reason whatsoever why construction machines should be fitted with ordinary glass any more. Given the right volumes, the extra cost is negligible, and on top of that you have the enormous advantages that an unbreakable solution offers. If you add up all the potential benefits, there is a massive incentive for the industry to change its views on how a safe driver’s cab should be designed, concludes Bengt.

For queries or further information, contact the following persons at Hammerglass AB:
Bengt Nilsson, MD: Bengt.Nilsson@Hammerglass.se, Tel: +46 733 54 00 29