Owens-Illinois Glass Company - Muncie, Indiana, Plant

Owens-Illinois to expand

TV bulb plants' capacity

TOLEDO (UPI) - Owens-Illinois, Inc., announced a multi-million dollar expansion program today to increase by 25 per cent the capacity of its two television bulb plants producing glass picture tube envelopes.

A new glass melting furnace will begin operations this month at Columbus, Ohio, for manufacture of tubes for use in the United States and abroad.

A glass melting furnace at the Muncie, Ind., plant is being converted for television bulb production and is scheduled for completion by next summer.

The expansion will bring to eight the number of furnaces Owens-Illinois has melting glass for production of black and white picture tubes.

Alec M. Turner, executive vice president, said the U. S. television industry was expected to produce more than 4.5 million color sets this year, an increase of 2.5 million over 1965, and black and white sets produced were expected to be down only slightly from the 8.1 million of last year.