Responsible organizations such as ours are very careful when covering reports of problems in supply chains or scarcities. Get it wrong and you’ve most likely helped create one. (The long-ago Tonight Show host Johnny Carson is generally blamed for starting the great toilet paper shortage of 1973 when he joked about a non-existent one, thereby inciting one.) Pass on reporting on shortages and you’ve kept information your audience needs from them. Questions about deficiencies often come up, and they are being asked in abundance now. Here’s how I answer them. Actual glass shortages are rare. Float lines run 24/7 and, absent a catastrophe or epic fail, their removals from service… Read More »
If you and I are alike, we have been inundated, overwhelmed really, by the volume of notices we receive. Information is coming so fast from so many directions that it’s hard to have the time to cull out the ones that are relevant and timely. But now, help is on the way. Frankly, that culling and sorting by relevancy is one of our company’s main functions as a glass information provider. As you know, we provide daily e-newsletters for the industries we serve, such as this one. But sometimes, you just want to know what is coming up this week, or what you will miss if you don’t know about… Read More »
Throughout the pandemic through which we are living, there has been a lot of confusion and ignorance around who or what is considered “essential.” For companies, being considered essential has meant the difference between being able to stay open or be closed in some states. For individuals, it can determine when you will have access to the COVID-19 vaccine. So it was with all this in mind that I studied the Department of Homeland Security memo issued December 16, 2020 titled “Advisory Memorandum on Ensuring Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers’ Ability to Work During the COVID-19 Response.” The memo details which workers, by function, are considered essential during the pandemic. This… Read More »
Last blog—of the year that is. So I have spent most of the weekend thinking of how to accurately describe this year and capture the lessons it taught us. Can anything really do that? I doubt it, but I am going to try. I am writing here of the pandemic in general because far too many people have had their health, or that of their loved ones, affected. Far too many have watched loved ones wage and lose a war against it. I am sorry for all these losses. Those of us still here have aged more than a year since last December. What COVID has is the extraordinary ability… Read More »
It’s no secret that the architectural glass industry has been a consistent and long-term adaptor of much of the new technology developed for automotive glass. Tinted glass, for example, was originally developed for automobiles. The rotatable magnetron, which was originally used to place coatings on glass, was developed by an auto glass fabrication company from Michigan. Today, its successor technology is used to provide a number of different coatings, including low-E coatings. But these inventions pale in comparison to what is coming now. Let me explain. Apple, yes the Apple of iMacs, iPads and iPhones, filed a patent application in late August that will identify cracks or other imperfections in… Read More »
Should I go there? It’s the biggest story of the week and most likely the second biggest story of the year (COVID-19 will win that contest every time). But USGlass magazine is a trade publication, not a current events magazine … and the preliminary results are not yet certified and the subject of dispute. So, I will go there in one sense only. And that way is this: Assuming Joe Biden does take the office on January 20th, here are the top five items that are most likely to change for our industry: Construction Spending: Biden’s proposed $2 trillion infrastructure package focuses mostly on roads, bridges, etc. But it does… Read More »
The Presidential election tomorrow has led to an interesting condition in the glass industry, especially among retailers and smaller glazing contractors. It’s actually one I’ve not seen before. Many of the glass shop owners and managers with whom I have spoken during these past two months or so have told me the same story: their warehouses and back rooms are full of glass ordered specifically for jobs they have already been contracted to do. They are ready to schedule and complete them, but the building owners are not. They don’t want the glass installed, not yet anyway. Some of the glass replacements are a result of usual breakage, others a… Read More »
Few things have had such broad and wide-reaching implications for all aspects of life as COVID-19 has. It has permeated just about every piece of it, including how we conduct business. Contract glaziers are no exception. COVID-19 will force changes in contract language and open items to interpretation that have never even garnered a glance before. Here are some of the areas you’ll want to review in your contracts in light of COVID-19: Force majeure: Most contracts between general contractors and their glazing subcontractor have exceptions to deadlines, etc., for force majeure. COVID shined a light on exactly what constitutes force majeure. Is it having the virus in your workforce… Read More »
Almost everything is different due to COVID-19, an unwelcomed visitor upon this planet whose appearance has lasted far too long. While the pandemic doesn’t change the most important things in life—the people you love (assuming they have not sadly been a victim of it), the morals you hold and the faith you live by—a lot of other things will and have changed. Here’s an updated list of what industry and business items are going out and what’s coming in as a result of what we are experiencing. This is an open list, so if you have any suggestions for other items that should be included, please send them in and… Read More »
About 15 years ago, I wrote in my column in USGlass magazine to warn about the dangers of non-safety glass used in furniture, particularly in glass table tops. After going through all the safety and moral reasons why safety glass should be necessary, I ended with a prediction. I predicted that it would not take long for an accident or high-profile event involving glass furniture to occur and bring negative and wide publicity to the industry. “Then,” I opined, “we will lose control of the dialogue and the solution to this problem in much the same way the safety glazing laws originally came about in the late ’70s and early… Read More »
