Stratec Se services

The experience and support that partners engaging with STRATEC require varies widely depending upon their experience with and knowledge of instrument development. STRATEC begins each partnership working with the partner to diagnose the services and solutions it can deploy to assure the partner’s success. Working together with its partners, STRATEC analyzes the specific requirements of the target market, the application at hand and the work processes of laboratories and end users. On this basis, it draws up a system architecture concept and, where necessary, the associated reagent concept.

STRATEC’s product development is an innovation driver both for our partners and for technologies in the industry. The core team for a development project consists of a program manager, system integration specialists and experienced employees from the core disciplines of: Instrument development, Mechanical construction, Electronics, Embedded software
Software, Verification, Documentation.

While system development work is primarily focused within the company headquarters in Birkenfeld, Germany,  system production takes place in both Birkenfeld and Beringen, Switzerland, dependent upon the manufacturing challenges in terms of scale and complexity. Our Beringen and Birkenfeld facilities provide additional services across the group and to our partners such as spare part supply and repair service. Both locations are certified under ISO9001 and ISO13485, are FDA-registered and are regularly audited.

STRATEC offers its partners all of the support needed for the entire lifecycle management of the products it supplies. This involves third-level support for instruments already operating in the field, including complaint management, technical support for field service, and error analyses for complex problems. STRATEC also works together with its partners to account for changes in market and regulatory requirements which may affect product features. Lifecycle management also includes continuous production improvements and modifications resulting from discontinuation of modules and components. STRATEC cooperates with its partners to utilize progress in production processes and implements value engineering projects to make this progress available for existing product lines.

Industrialization starts with the right idea and the right design – usually co-developed by our customer and our interdisciplinary team of engineers. We offer a smooth transition from device conception to mass manufacturing by fully understanding the initial system and assay requirements, as well as the essential cost drivers. “Integrating different functions on one chip, e.g. molded filters or printed electrodes, is routine for us. Being able to anticipate and reduce the number of components and manufacturing steps at an early stage might sound trivial, but it can have a massive impact on yield, quality and final price”, says Ing. Gottfried Reiter, Principal Engineer.

Having translated the proof-of-concept into fully functional prototypes, these prototypes are used to optimize processes during pilot production – already considering the requirements of future mass-production. “Frequently, we work with standardized formats e.g. CD format to keep the cost of prototyping as low as possible. For example we make a disc with all functional features mimicking the final production process. To maximize efficiency during the prototyping phase, we often obtain the final outer dimensions by micro milling the design from the disc”, says Dr. Werner Balika, Manager Core Processes.

Most mastering is kept in-house for rapid customer response and short turn-around time: our digital customizable mastering technology affords a lot of advantages and capabilities like Multi height features. Layer heights between 50 nm and 300µm. Aspect ratios up to 12:1 and Small structure sizes down to 150 nm. “In our business precision mastering is an essential prerequisite. Thanks to our in-house service the best technology and short turnaround time is a true value add for our customers”, says Dr. Adrian Prinz, Development Engineer Mastering.

We provide development and production of smart plastic parts helping the customer to get the best performance and results from the instruments. The experience and knowledge of high volume disc manufacturing in the past is one of our pillars for mass production. Our injection molding equipment is integrated with state-of-the-art robots that carefully handle molded parts, discard sprues and place finished parts on automated conveyors for laser marking, checking and packaging.