Contract Development and Manufacturing
Manufacturing Qualifications
Nova’s Manufacturing Group consists of the personnel and infrastructure to support manufacturing engineering, materials management, quality control/assurance, purchasing, scheduling, and production functions. Our state-of-the-art production facilities incorporate sophisticated manufacturing equipment to provide high quality, reliable products at an agreed upon schedule and price.
Key areas of expertise include:
- Full printed circuit board capability — both surface mount and through hole boards
- Automated reagent mixing, filling and sealing
- Final system assembly and test
- Full in-house plastics molding and machine shop (over 170 molds produced)
- State-of-the-art information systems (paperless factory)
Intensive Quality Philosophy
At Nova, quality begins before the raw materials ever enter our factory. Our Supplier Quality Engineering (SQE) program assures that each of the suppliers we select is certified to meet stringent product quality standards. Moreover, periodic evaluations are conducted to assure that these standards are constantly maintained.
During a development or manufacturing program, our innovative quality control program establishes cross-functional quality teams including members of our clients’ staffs to proactively address quality and operational issues throughout the project duration. This intensive philosophy results in an internal level of quality that deliberately surpasses our clients’ requirements.
Continuous Quality Monitoring
Our standard quality procedures include organization and training, incoming QA, in-process inspection, full system functional testing, and statistical analysis. Importantly, we also form a Product Line Quality Committee (PLQC) for each product; each PLQC is comprised of Nova and client participants. The PLQC is an oversight group that proactively addresses a wide range of quality and operational issues before they could reach a problem stage.
Continuous Product Improvement
With a goal to improve the quality of each product and reduce its manufacturing cost, Nova provides cost reduction and manufacturing engineering support to each client on an ongoing basis.
Focused Factories
In contrast to many contract manufacturers, Nova does not “time share” its production resources. Instead, Nova dedicates manufacturing personnel as well as space and inventory resources to each individual project.
This focused factory approach clearly identifies responsibility and promotes the most effective operation and management throughout the manufacturing process.
Range of Manufacturing Capabilities
Among the capabilities that separates Nova from other manufacturers is our ability to accommodate a broad spectrum of projects from simple to complex, low to high volume, including reagents and/or instrumentation. The following examples demonstrate our current range of instrument manufacturing capabilities: