Beckermus Technologies establishes facility for the mass production of optical and microelectronic a
The company is setting up a mass production facility in Caesarea that will serve dedicated customer production lines. The company already operates a dedicated production line for the optical assemblies of a large international company.
Dedicated production line at Beckermus facility in Caesarea. Photo credit: Techtime
Beckermus Technologies of Caesarea is setting up the infrastructure for mass production for key clients. In this initial phase, it will be able to meet the needs of five distinct product lines. Alongside the existing facility in the southern industrial area of Caesarea, the company has begun readying an industrial building, including the preparation of a large hall that can be divided into modular clean rooms, within which customers’ production lines will be established.
This first phase represents an investment of approximately $ 1.2 million. Oded Beckermus, the company’s co-CEO, told Techtime that facility preparation is part of expanding the company's business model, and entering mass production projects in partnership with customers. with the completion of this move in the coming weeks, the existing facility will focus on the development of production processes, bringing new products to the production line (NPI) and production in series of up to tens of thousands of units per month, with mass production carried out on new production lines that will be set up in collaboration with customers.
In parallel, the company plans to increase manpower and absorb new employees to work on the new lines. According to Beckermus, the decision to take this step was made following a number of developments in the market: the need for customers in Europe and in Israel to erect compartmentalized production lines, and the increasingly strict quality requirements associated with products in the fields of medical photonics, smart vehicles, virtual reality, and 5th generation (5G) optical communication systems.
One such client is Medtronic, which decided to produce its endoscopes for brain surgery at Beckermus. (The endoscopes were developed by an Israeli company, Visionsense, which was bought by Medtronic in April 2018 for about $65 million.)
European companies are seeking Israeli production
Beckermus recently gained another major client: a major international company has decided to hand over the production of laser-based optical assemblies. As part of the project, a dedicated production line was established for the company (shown above). Marky Levy, Operations and Business Manager at Beckermus, said the demand for the new solution also comes from customers in Europe who are interested in establishing a production line with a specialist microelectronics and optics assembly contractor in Israel.
The new manufacturing hall.
Co-CEO, Oren Beckermus, noted that the new model has additional advantages. "We have very advanced equipment for R&D and production development processes, but when moving to mass production, machines with different characteristics are needed. For example, we have an active Alignment system from ficonTEC, which has the widest platform of modules and applications. However, when it comes to the production line, you need a machine that has only the features needed for the product. For this reason, the ficonTEC systems in operation will be one that has been adjusted to meet the dedicated needs of the project.
Customers look for privacy
Oded Beckermus pointed out that the new work method gives the company operational flexibility and the ability to meet special customer requirements. "Many times customers require a dedicated production line that must be totally separate from the rest of the site's production lines and must be managed according to their special requirements. In the new facility, offices will be available for our customers. Each customer with a production line will have an on-site office, from which he can closely monitor their production line."
Beckermus is a family-run company that provides manufacturing services for microelectronics and micro-photonics assemblies, and is managed by brothers, Oren and Oded Beckermus. The company's current production line covers an area of approximately 1,500 square meters, to which the facility currently under construction will be added.
