Float: Pilkingtons’ Glass Revolution

David J. Bricknell’s Float: Pilkingtons’ Glass Revolution is a study on entrepreneurial decision making based on a case study: the Pilkington Brothers industries. The Pilkington family took the first steps in the glass-making industry in the beginning of the nineteenth century, remaining a small British plate glass producer until the mid-twentieth century. Its leading worldwide role is associated with its pioneering mastering of float glass technology, which eliminates the traditional operations of rolling, grinding, and polishing the glass, while creating a high-quality inexpensive flat glass. In the so-called Pilkington process, the molten glass is fed into a “tin bath” and then flows onto the tin surface, forming a floating ribbon with perfectly smooth surfaces on both sides and an even thickness. This new process of glass making was a major technical revolution that affected the technique itself, the organization of work in the plants, the shape of the world’s glass industry, and the leadership in international markets.