The email system at Europlaz is down.

We have not received emails since early on Thursday 26 January 2012. Apologies if you have been trying to contact anyone at Europlaz – or if you are awaiting a reply.

For anything urgent please call us on 01621773471

and send faxes to 01621773792

We are working on getting all emails up and running asap.

Thank you for your patience.

Europlaz

Here are a selection of  photographs of new machinery in cleanroom three at the Europlaz manufacturing site in Southminster, Essex.

Europlaz have been investing heavily in new equipment over the past two years following the major investment in our newest class 7 cleanroom. Here you can see a new Faro Gage Plus machine – a  portable measurement arm offers accuracies up to .018mm and a 1.2m working volume. This has allowed us to replace any cluttered inspection area with one tool that can accurately do it all.

For a full list of machinery and our capabilities please feel free to contact us on 01621773471..

You can also follow @Europlaz on Twitter for regular news & updates.

Medical and technical Injection moulding within a cleanroom, Essex, UK

In this picture you can see the 300 Tonne Injection Moulding machine at work – this is one of the largest injection moulding machines currently in a cleanroom in the UK. Europlaz has over 40 years experience of technical and medical injection moulding.

Hot Plate Welder within cleanroom 3 - Used to weld micro wire on specialist medical devices - medical manufacturing.

This is a real piece of kit – the hot plate welder uses a robotic arm and microscopic measurements for the most accurate medical device manufacturing.

Europlaz are always keen to show off our site and cleanrooms so please call to organize a site visit if there is something you wish to discuss.

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You can see the digital copy of the magazine at Medical Device Network.com – or look on our news pages for up to date info about our cleanroom manufacturing.

Apprentice Schemes don't always have to be high drama

Personally, I know of two 1^st class engineering graduates from Edinburgh University who found it so impossible to find engineering work experience, a necessity if they were to continue to a masters in engineering, that they both left the field completely in favor of finance.

If this is the state of the industry as it stands, who are we expecting to take over once the current engineering leaders retire? Acording to research, engineering is not seen as an attractive or ‘sexy’ profession by many young people, so should we be as flippant as to turn away those who show an interest?

It is not just engineering which faces the problem of a widening skills gap, in our industry of medical device manufacturing there are many other areas where a future skills shortage could manifest itself.

To ensure we have the engineers, injection molders and machine specialists of the future Europlaz have started an apprenticeship scheme. This month we have hired our first Engineering and Manufacturing Apprentice to learn first hand the industry from experts.

The first few months of the Advanced Apprenticeship will be spent completing an induction period. The apprentice will work in all areas of Europlaz, including tool making, machine setting, R&D, Design, production, purchasing, distribution and quality control. He will then have a chance to see all aspects of our work and decide on his specialist area.

Congratulations to all staff for, once again, showing off Europlaz as a cut above the competition.

We are delighted to have won these exciting new contracts and are looking forward to working with our new partners for the foreseeable future.

Read on for all the selection criteria Europlaz had to meet.

In this industry we enter into long and very important partnerships,  therefore customers use strict and rigorous criteria when selecting a contract manufacturer – in this instance necessary competency included:

• ISO 13485
• Cleanroom facilities
• Injection Moulding
• Sterilisation and sterilisation validation
• Product assembly
• Fluid dispensing
• Foil Sealing
• Foil pouch packing
• Labelling and label printing
• Bulk packaging and supply of packaging materials
• Tooling manufacture
• Storage and distribution

In addition Europalz was chosen due to our knowledge and experience in meeting all regulatory requirements of class IIb medical devices, handling the initial set up of a brand new product and also because we have the capacity to increase speed and volume of production in the near future.

We still have space for a few other contracts in our newest cleanroom, so if you think you have a project we could help you with do not hesitate to get in touch for a no obligation chat and quote.

Res, the company behind the Turncole Wind Farm have assured Southminster community construction will take just 12 months and will bring benefits along side renewable energy, such as a community fund.

Europlaz is committed to sustainability and reducing our own energy emissions so we are excited to see what comes of the proposed plans and the impact on the local environment.

As we are so close to the coast, and Burnham on Crouch is one of the most well respected sailing towns in England, I’m sure there is great potential here to exploit the wind as a renewable, green energy source.

To see the proposed location and more information see www.turncolewindfarm.co.uk

Neonatal flow sensor

Europlaz is an ISO 13485:2003 and BS EN ISO 9001-2008 accredited manufacturer, established in design and manufacture of medical products since 1975. Today, Europlaz specalises in fine tolerance assembly and complex injection moulding.
All manufacturing is done onsite in the SE of England with excellent transport links throughout the EU.

Flow Sensor Features
•    Hot-wire anemometry technology
•    Single-use for minimum membrane contamination
•    Clean or sterile option
•    50% lighter than nearest competitor sensor for comfort of small patients
•    Mistake proof connector socket
•    Device can be customised and branded to your specification, as can packaging

A state-of-the-art production cell, specifically for this flow sensor, is installed within our newest ISO class 7 cleanroom and highly trained production technicians are skilled to meet demand.

Europlaz as a supplier
•    High supply capacity for assurance of timely delivery
•    Advanced production cell, stereo vision positioning and a welding robot assure high accuracy and repeatability
•    Competent, accredited manufacturer with skilled production staff
•    Full traceability – individual sensor test records – SPS data available with COC

Neville & Rowe came to Europlaz and investigated our reporting systems with a view to create more efficient and streamlined ways of analyzing key data. Neville and Rowe specifically wanted to work with a manufacturing company to determine if their business solution software, typically used in financial institutions, was easily transferable.

We are very impressed with the resuts, and ImpactEdge and are looking for ways to expand the programme to other areas of Europlaz business – manufacturing and quality control.

Here is their analysis of what happened:
Situation

Neville & Rowe were introduced to Accounts Manager, Emma Harding to help Europlaz streamline their monthly reporting cycle. The Finance department at Europlaz were frustrated with the manual process involving importing information into Excel, manually manipulating data and running various Excel macros to produce the finished reports.

Solution

Neville & Rowe visited Europlaz at their premises in Southminster armed with the task of making the reporting process simpler and automated. Within a short space of time Europlaz had ImpactEdge installed and their reports implemented as ImpactEdge solutions. The Finance department now simply run ImpactEdge at month end to automatically query the ERP system, manipulate the information and present the information in Europlaz’s own report layout.

“ImpactEdge has helped automate our month end process to such a degree that we now spend more time analysing the results instead of manually producing reports. I have enjoyed working with Neville & Rowe. They have managed to implement a sophisticated solution and streamline our process in a matter days.” Emma Harding, Accounts Manager at Europlaz Technologies Ltd.

One day the orchard may look a little like this

The idea is that as the trees grow they will join over head in the centre and form an arch for people to walk through.

It will be a while before our trees are as impressive as these but as they grow there will be an increasingly beautiful display of fruits and flowers.

Pictures of the actual orchard below.

The trees are not your average flowering cherry trees, there are two types of cherry fruit trees which means a great harvest for the walkers and the birds.

One day these will be flowering & making juicy cherries

The beginnings of an avenue of cherries

The trees will supply fruit for the community if the birds don't get there first

The other trees in the garden include Walnuts, Apples, Pears and more cherries! Many local businesses and individuals have sponsored trees and there are spaces left for the next round of planting.

Europlaz are proud to sponsor the Southminster community which we have been a part of since 1970. Thanks to FOSCOS for their hard work.