As of March 2019, SemiNex Corporation has begun manufacturing their laser engines on a newly implemented assembly line at the company's headquarters in Peabody, Massachusetts. Over the past couple years, SemiNex engineers have optimized trial production processes to lower cost, improve performance, and increase capacity. Now, with production in full swing, SemiNex will continue to monitor and improve key performance metrics such as cycle time, on-time delivery, yield, and throughput. These steps will be crucial to successfully transferring the process over to contract manufacturing—a technique that SemiNex says it typically uses to stay lean.
"The new production line uses custom fixtures to automate critical steps and requires minimal input from a technician," says mechanical engineer and project lead, Matt Hamerstrom. "We've reduced assembly time tenfold from the old design, and we were able to halve the cost while maintaining optimal performance."
Lasers for aesthetic use
While there has been considerable interest in home aesthetic laser treatments, few companies have been able to produce laser devices at a price and safety standard appealing to consumers. Every component of SemiNex's new production line, from the custom fixtures to the software on the final test station, has been engineered to meet these requirements for the consumer beauty market.
"It's been invaluable to have the insider knowledge and experience SemiNex brings to the production process," says Kayla Govoni, spokesperson for NIRA, a manufacturer of handheld home skincare laser devices. "We're expecting 2019 to be the year we really start seeing lasers for aesthetic use inside people's homes."
Seminex produces indium phosphide (InP)-based single-emitter, bar, bare-chip, and stack laser diode units, as well as modules, laser engines, and fiber-coupled units in the 1270 to 1940 nm wavelength region. In addition to aesthetic medical treatment, these lasers can be used for eye-safe military equipment and free-space optical communications.
Source: Seminex
