The Industry Division of Sika Corp., Madison Heights, Mich., is raising prices to adjust to the continued escalating costs of a number of raw materials required to produce the company's auto glass adhesive products.

According to Ron Smith, director of marketing, glass shops will see a 5 to 10 percent increase in the adhesives they buy. "We're still looking at the final numbers," he told GlassBYTEs™. "We're the same as all the other companies which are buying raw materials. The costs keep going up and we've eaten as much as we can because it's a very competitive environment," he explained. "But at this point, we felt we had to make this move.

Previous price adjustments have not recovered supplier cost hikes which are expected to persist throughout the remainder of the year, the company stated in announcing the move.

"It is no secret that petroleum based raw materials, energy and transportation costs continue to rise. We remain committed to offset some of these costs with productivity and technology improvements, and by simply absorbing other costs. However, we have to pass on some portion of the most recent increases in order to maintain the performance integrity of our products and profitability targets for our shareholders," said Bill Pringle, the division's senior vice president.