Our commitment to providing our customers with the best products in their class extends to ensuring we have world class facilities in which to manufacture those products. Over the past year and half we have worked to completely overhaul our Cleveland factory, Gooch & Housego (Ohio).

The Highland Heights facility is where we grow our BBO, CdS, CdSe, KDP, KD*P, LiNbO3, TeO2 crystals, design and manufacture Pockels cells, crystal optics and waveplates. Major renovations at the site are now complete. The facility had continuously grown over the last 35 years and in this time developed into an ill-configured facility in need of updating. A blank slate approach to redesign was undertaken evaluating work flow, employee utilization, and cross-training with an emphasis on lean manufacturing.

When complete crystal fabrication, finishing, and coating operations were moved into available space within the high temperature growth facility - Alpha North. A new Class 1000 clean room for Pockels cells, and other optical component assembly, was installed with cubicles testing below class 10. A second Class 1000 clean room was installed to house the AR coating facility. The coating equipment being housed here has been upgraded to give the Cleveland facility coating capability from the low UV to high IR.

Crystal fabrication facilities from both buildings were consolidated to maximize employee cross-training, utilization, efficiency and increase capacity. These consolidations freed up space in Alpha South for a new engineering area with dedicated laser labs, with full range of optical and electro-mechanical capabilities from UV to mid-IR. Additionally space was made available to increase our crystal growth by nearly 50%. The plan also upgraded sales, finance, conference and meeting facilities, as well as IT infrastructure.

Overall, the renovation has upgraded the facility with an eye on lean manufacturing and increased capacity providing world class space for AR coating, assembly and product development.

Gooch & Housego plc published this content on 20 June 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 20 June 2017 10:24:06 UTC.

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