CHANGES planned for a massive robot born and bred at Clifton Moor, York, are causing a new wave of excitement throughout the plate glass factories of Britain.

IGAR - which stands for Insulated Glass Articulated Robot - is the brainchild of technicians at Forward + Thompson's engineering factory in Atlas Road.

As reported in the Evening Press in March the cast iron and aluminium machine is set to make the factory a fortune, but newest modifications being devised could mean an extra spurt in millions of pounds worth of sales and high-tech design and manufacturing staff nearly doubling to 30.

Where it takes two workers 30 to 40 seconds to tape the edges of newly-produced plate glass to prevent cuts and damage in transit, the programmed IGAR computer-gauges the size of the glass and whips around the edges in just 15 seconds.

Already three of the machines have been sold at £150,000 each and two more plate glass factories are monitoring both its use and the level of savings gained at the touch of a console button.

Now Martin Askham, managing director of Forward + Thompson, is planning two modifications likely to step up demand even further. At the same time as taping the edges, another system will integrate an automatic "gunning" process which squirts sealants between the plates, he said.

"The new version will be more expensive, but will save on the cost of gunning systems, as well as saving time, floor space and, ultimately, money."

A second tweaking will eventually mean that IGAR will at the same time also completely replace the human task of gluing lead into lead light windows.

One estimate is that eventually 50 factories throughout the UK alone will line up to buy the basic IGAR, fetching about £7.5 million. The modifications being tried out will fetch millions of pounds more.

"That doesn't take into account the sale of spares and replacements. This is a product that is going to make a huge impact on plate glass manufacture and will continue to grow. We're very excited about it."

Clones of IGAR have already been sold to a large manufacturer in Barnsley and two more in Birmingham.

Updated: 11:28 Monday, September 06, 2004