FACTORY TOUR:

CENTSYS’s Production Facility
Currently CENTSYS’s manufacturing facility has 20 production lines; these can be grouped into four main areas;

• Computer numerically-controlled (CNC)
• Surface-mount technology (SMT)
• Electronics assembly, and
• Mechanical assembly.

Collectively, CENTSYS manufactures in excess of 272,000 sub-assemblies per month, which are required for final assembly. This in turn translates into 82,000 finished products per month, and considering that most products are hand-assembled on semi-automated production lines this is quite an impressive accomplishment.

Almost all the tools and jigs used for assembly are designed, built and maintained in-house by CENTSYS’s own production-support department. This has led to a competitive advantage for CENTSYS as there is very little downtime while waiting for machinery to be repaired, in addition it leads to the development of some very innovative ways to assemble and test finished products.

Some years ago CENTSYS embarked on a production efficiency programme, run through the Department of Trade and Industry. This programme, called The Workplace Challenge, empowers our employees to be more involved in the decisions made in the business, drives innovation and leadership, and helps in the skills development and upliftment of the workforce. This has given CENTSYS the edge over our competitors in terms of the quality and delivery of our products to the end-users.  The employees go the extra mile to improve their work area and their productivity, and are proud to have their name associated with the individual products that they produce.

CENTSYS’s Research and Development
CENTSYS’s R&D department is responsible for both the design of new products, and the production lines on which they are manufactured. The team comprises numerous engineers, whose primary focus is the development of world-class access automation products.  Our electronics skill set includes:

• Embedded hardware
• Firmware and software design
• Power supply design
• RF/RFID design

– while our mechanical abilities include 3D modelling, FEA (Finite Element Analysis) and gear design.

As a manufacturer, we have an intimate understanding of the requirement of the volume manufacturing process, and this is taken into account at design time, where continuous liaison between the design and manufacturing teams ensures that each product can be assembled in the minimum amount of time, allowing us to provide class-leading products at competitive prices.

All CENTSYS products are designed internally, which allows us to tailor our designs to suit local conditions, and gives us an intimate understanding of the inner workings. This translates into the ability to provide world-class backup, and also the possibility of adapting our products to customer-specific applications.