A modern company with origins in the 1960s
Lids for baby food, communication equipment for rockets, cytostatics for hospitals – these are just a few of the products produced in Highcare’s cleanrooms. This Tilburg-based company has been designing, manufacturing and installing metal cleanrooms according to the Industrial Flexible Disassembly (IFD) system for more than 25 years.
Highcare is the only provider in the market that delivers turnkey cleanrooms, including walls, floors, technical installations and HEPA filter units. All components are of high quality, industrially prefabricated and perfectly matched to each other. This speeds up construction and keeps costs down. ‘Moreover, customers have only one point of contact,’ says director-owner Bas de Bruijn. Highcare offers everything in one place: from design and production to the installation of unique metal cleanrooms with high ratings and air treatment systems.
Reliability and reproducibility
Demand for cleanrooms is growing, De Bruijn notes, with customers from the semiconductor industry, precision engineering, (bio)pharmaceuticals, food production and aviation. ‘More and more production processes require special conditions to make reliable and reproducible products. In the semiconductor industry, the technology is so advanced that the air must be extremely clean, with the right humidity and temperature, to prevent disturbances caused by dust particles.’ Reliability plays a crucial role here: customers want to avoid errors at all costs. This translates into reliable performance 24/7, at every measurement point and over long periods of time for large production volumes. Highcare has specialized in providing this assurance.
Commercial appeal
A cleanroom also offers commercial advantages. ‘Companies with a cleanroom inspire confidence among customers. It shows that they provide a high-quality production environment that is regularly inspected by an objective inspection body,’ says De Bruijn. Highcare cleanrooms comply with strict international standards such as ISO, CGMP, HACCP and BRC, depending on the sector, and are made of carefully selected inert materials suitable for sterile environments.
History of Highcare
Highcare has its origins in an installation company that worked primarily for Philips in the 1960s. At that time, the first low-dust areas were already being realized in the Volt factories in Tilburg. Under the leadership of Koos Nolte, the company expanded its activities in the 1970s to include high-quality low-dust areas. In the 1980s, the company was incorporated into the NIG Group, which was later acquired by Stork. After reorganizations at Philips and Stork, the company continued with international ambitions under the name Highcare.
Innovative and flexible
Highcare developed the innovative IFD building system during this period. This system allows cleanrooms to be placed as independent units in an industrial hall – a box-in-box principle. This offers young entrepreneurs the flexibility to easily move their cleanroom with them to a new location.
International ambitions
Highcare Cleanrooms now works for clients such as DSM, VDL, Arion, BasicPharma and Antwerp Space. The company is active in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Russia and Bulgaria and has expansion plans towards Brazil and the Middle East. Since 2002, Bas de Bruijn, graduated from the IHBO in Tilburg, has been at the helm of Highcare.