Niederweningen, 23 October 2006

Emhart Glass, a division of Bucher Industries and the world's leading supplier of machinery for glass container manufacturing, is investing EUR 15 million in a new research and development facility in the USA. In so doing, Emhart Glass is seeking to enhance the glass forming process and bring its project for tempered, and thus lighter weight and more durable, glass containers to market.

The "Emhart Glass Research Center" will house laboratories and offices for 60 employees and a complete pilot production line with a furnace for 40 metric tons of glass per day. The facility will be equipped with state-of-the-art Emhart Glass machines and equipment, including servo-electric NIS machines and Veritas inspection machines. This will provide the infrastructure for developing and field testing all current and future generations of machines as well as forming and inspection processes. The Research Center to be built on a 6 hectare site in Windsor, CT, USA, is scheduled to come on stream in mid-2007.

Emhart Glass is building this research and development facility, unique in the industry, with a view to extending its technology and market leadership. The Research Center will provide the framework for improving the stability, quality and efficiency of the glass forming process, while developing methods to reduce glass container manufacturing costs and accelerating the pace of new developments for future generations of machines. It will allow revolutionary new glass forming processes to be field tested and demonstrated to interested customers.

One such completely new glass forming technique is the process that Emhart Glass has developed for tempering glass containers. The aim of the tempering process is to produce both thinner-walled, and thus lighter weight, and more durable glass containers. It significantly reduces the only known drawbacks of glass containers, bringing to bear all the advantages of full recyclability and environmental safety inherent in glass packaging material. The first pilot plant for manufacturing tempered glass containers will come on stream at the Emhart Glass Research Center in mid-2007.

Emhart Glass has set itself the mission of providing customers not only with simply great machines but also with complete solutions for their processes. The developments made at the Glass Research Center will help to improve the competitiveness of the glass container industry and even offer revolutionary new solutions to compete with other packaging materials.

Bucher Industries is a global technology group with leading market positions in specialty areas of mechanical and vehicle engineering. The company's operations include specialized agricultural machinery, municipal vehicles, wine and fruit juice production plants, hydraulic components, and production equipment for the glass container industry. Bucher Industries' shares are traded on SWX Swiss Exchange (SWX: BUCN).


Contact
Philip Mosimann, CEO
Roger Baillod, CFO
Phone +41 44 857 22 07