Cogent Technology has moved into a new 80,000 sqft facility in Felixstowe, to serve its clients with manufacturing. The new facility features state of the art production lines, including two ISO 14644-1 Class 7 Rapidbloc cleanrooms for its innovative medical and healthcare products.
Rapidbloc Cleanrooms have been developed by Connect 2 Cleanrooms (C2C) to meet the urgent critical demands of some of the world's fastest moving industries, such as healthcare and advanced manufacturing. Clean production will enable Cogent to grow its product offering and expand services to clients with consumables and accessories that complement existing PCB assembly product ranges.
The two Rapidbloc cleanrooms were designed and built in just eight weeks, including validation to ISO 14644-1 class 7. This expedited time-scale was important to Cogent as the cleanrooms were able to be coordinated within its wider facility fit-out programme and so production was not interrupted.
A monobloc cleanroom project of this scale would usually have a lead time of up to four months, whereas Rapidbloc Cleanrooms generate significant productivity gains to enable a faster return on investment. Rapidbloc cleanroom layouts are fully configurable and as parts are shipped from stock from C2C's warehouse and distribution hub, on-site assembly is fast and efficient.
Robert Stainer, Commercial Director at Cogent said: "As part of our relocation to a new 80,000 sqft facility we are proud to be enhancing our Medical Device manufacturing capabilities with the commissioning of two class 7 cleanrooms validated to ISO 14644-1."
"This investment will not only enable Cogent to meet our current clients' needs, but also position the team to facilitate the provision of associated device consumables capacity as med-tech businesses rethink their supply chain strategies in light of changing attitudes to sourcing," Stainer added.
"The term 'short supply chain' is resonating throughout the business world after recent events in 2020. A more robust supply chain is needed for resilience against future events," Stainer concluded.
Michael Wright, Managing Director at Connect 2 Cleanrooms, said: "With Rapidbloc Cleanrooms, a semi-bespoke design process allows a customised build to be configured using standard parts."
The ultra-clean environments are created using HEPA filtration that is 99.99% efficient at 0.3 microns, whilst the envelope uses Kingspan's Ultratech range of QuadCore insulated panels to provide a level of airtightness that controls running costs through enhanced energy performance.
Michael continued: "This modular approach delivers a precision-engineered cleanroom with ISO- compliant performance, within an expedited time frame. Thanks to the use of standard parts and pre-determined design calculations, even the quotation and design stages are expedited, so clients benefit from a rapid response through the entire project."
Connect 2 Cleanrooms also provided consumables, furniture, monitoring equipment and cleanroom training services.
