Guardian Glass North America announces enhancements to its certification program for architectural glass fabricators in the United States and Canada.

With the changes, current independent Guardian Select Fabricators become Guardian Select Advantage Fabricators, while those companies with advanced capabilities and quality standards that can meet the Elite program parameters can become Guardian Select Elite Fabricators. Elite Fabricators have the opportunity to work with Guardian Glass on projects that demand higher optical quality standards.

Supported by Guardian’s new Elite Optical Quality specification, architects will benefit from a glass product with the desired glass aesthetic and performance, coming through an improved supply chain with exemplary quality standards and service.

“The goal of the newly imagined program is to provide resources, services and support more specifically aligned with the needs of our Select Fabricator customers while at the same time answering the call from the architectural community for more stringent quality standards,” says Brian Schulz, Segment Marketing Manager, Commercial for Guardian Glass North America. “Guardian looks forward to joining our fabricator partners in creating value by opening up new project opportunities with SunGuard advanced architectural glass.”

Since 2007, Guardian Glass has brought value to fabricators and architects through the Guardian Select Fabricator program. These improvements were necessary to keep pace with fabricator growth and were developed from analysis of fabricator and architect interviews, research and insights into the North American commercial glass industry.

Key advances in the program include:

• Fabricators are grouped in a new tiered model based on processing capability quality standards and project scope.
• Fabricators in the Elite category will undergo a more robust and stringent certification process and more frequent re-certifications.
• The Guardian Select Elite Fabricator must have specific processing equipment, quality practices and measuring devices to meet the advanced standards.
• The Elite fabricator program incorporates the Elite Optical Quality specification, a new specification from Guardian Glass that assures the most stringent specification targets and processing controls are in place to achieve the highest level of optical qualities of glass on a project.

Fabricators and architects can visit the Guardian Glass website to learn more about the new Guardian Select Fabricator program.