Our approach to design

Glass is one of the most enduringly natural and attractive materials. We have combined these qualities with the skill and experience of our designers to create award winning bottles and jars for many leading food and beverage brands. Our teams, located at regional design centres alongside our manufacturing plants throughout Europe, are able to manage design projects across all product sectors in a variety of different shape profiles, to give brands unique stand out and aesthetic appeal.

We work alongside our customers from the earliest stages of a design and development project. Working to a common design platform based on the advanced product design software package CREO, best practice procedures ensure that new glass design projects reach the market not only with exceptional packaging, but also on time and to budget.

We have developed a unique structure and dedicated resources, which enable innovation to thrive throughout the Group. Our Core Innovation Team develops ideas in response to market trends and consumer needs; Regional Design Centres focus on new product development in response to a customer brief; our Operational Excellence Group and Quality Team, who focus on quality, efficiency and cost reduction, drive technical process innovation and our Group Research and Development facility concentrates on the long-term development of new processes and technologies.

The Ardagh Glass Innovation team members are drawn from all functions of the Group, allowing exciting new ideas from each part of the supply chain to grow and thrive. We have a passion for innovation and creativity; qualities which have positioned us as a world leading packaging business. We are constantly embracing new technologies and developing new product ideas to offer exciting new techniques, while driving forward our own continuous improvement agenda.

The worldwide demand for resource and energy sustainability has led to the successful development of glass lightweighting. Over the past 15 years the weight of a typical glass container has gone down by some 40%, and Ardagh has been at the forefront of this lightweighting technology. Using cutting edge design software and manufacturing precision to distribute weight more evenly around the container’s surface we have been successful in developing lightweight bottles cross various market sectors.

We are responsible for producing the world’s lightest beer bottle – 155g for a 330ml container. We have also developed the first 70cl spirit bottle and 750ml wine bottles below 300g. Our desire to set industry leading standards has led us to take one of the most iconic beverage bottles in the world from a 2005 weight of 240g to a current weight of 190g, while retaining all of the bottle’s trademark dimensions, its quality and strength, and improving its environmental performance.

We believe that our responsibility to our customers must extend throughout the supply chain. We employ experts who understand filling line operations, are familiar with all aspects of transportation and warehousing and can advise on recycling and sustainability. In placing great importance on providing the industry’s best customer service, we put considerable resources into finding ways to become even better at everything we do.

We invest heavily in an on-going programme of improvement. As a direct result of this, our customer service teams are skilled in the application of filling line monitoring systems, which display data in real-time, allowing us to drive the pace of improvement. While our Group-wide best practice initiative ensures that customers’ expectations are met at all times, and exceeded where possible.