The Count Down is On!
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On 1 October, we celebrated the completion of our facility renovations, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Block’ after the home renovation TV series. Our official opening day marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Chiptech, with each team now settling into purpose-built spaces designed to enhance their specific workflows. These optimised workspaces enable our production teams to refine their setups and processes, achieving faster, more streamlined operations—all focused on delivering top-quality products.
As a tribute to Aotearoa’s natural beauty, each workspace has been named after a native New Zealand bird. From the Tūī to the Kākāpō Café, these names symbolise our commitment to sustainable practices, some of these native birds even feature on an impressive mural we commissioned to brighten our carpark wall.
Mural art: Guy Ellis from XL Street Murals
Chiptech has always thrived by having the entire team working under one roof. This shared space fosters collaboration across research and development, software, production, servicing, and sales and support teams. By working closely together, we’re able to respond more dynamically to customer needs and adapt swiftly to new challenges.
Significant investment in the latest technology for electronic manufacturing, along with the shift from one SMT line to two, has already increased our production efficiency and improved our redundancy. We have also increased the use of robots, co-bots and automated systems to provide more consistency, reduce repetition of tasks, and reduce the potential for human error. Tulasi our Production Manager pointed out that “The robots we use to glue in SEVEN assembly have had their settings refined over time and now provide 100% consistency, with minimal maintenance, making it 4 times more efficient than the manual process we did previously.”
In addition to our production and assembly lines, we have implemented advanced manufacturing systems to streamline stock management, with a new warehousing system, and some pretty impressive component storage towers from Essegi, that communicate with out SMT lines to enhance efficiency. Rebecca who organises our Parts and Procurement said “Having multiple storage areas has freed up space so we can move around more easily and monitor all the parts we have on hand”.
We have dedicated teams of engineers who are responsible for developing and maintaining the in-house test systems we use to verify the performance of each populated printed circuit board (PCB), and a quality assurance system that indicates how well our processes are running in real time. Our software developers look after our in-house production software that manages stock, orders, and verifies a device passes a stage before it can move to the next step in the manufacturing process prior to despatch. Both the Research and Development and Software rooms are powered by the sun, thanks to the addition of solar panels on the roof of the building.
We also have manufacturing engineers who investigate how we can be more efficient within our manufacturing processes and develop hardware solutions to support this. Having both the right equipment and dedicated people to continuously work on improvements is reflective of Chiptech’s commitment to high-quality manufacturing, ensuring that we can meet the growing demand for our products in multiple markets.
During the recent tours of our newly renovated spaces, many were surprised to learn we conduct 100% testing on all wearable products to ensure that every device passes our quality control measures and meets the performance requirements that our end users can rely on in an emergency. We have always completed these assurance tests, but now have inline processes in multiple spaces to make this more efficient within each of the manufacturing processes.
Now we are in the final spaces and teams can spread out, we can achieve our goals more efficiently without the need for extended shifts or overtime.
Our facility also includes Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protected areas that provide crucial protection for sensitive electronic components. These ESD-safe zones and the accompanying testing regimes that staff follow to ensure they don’t have a build-up of static electricity they could pass on, are essential to maintaining product quality and longevity. In these spaces, our newly optimised inline assembly setup is designed to reduce travel between stages, enhancing efficiency and refining our build-to-order processes. This streamlined process allows us to deliver consistent quality at a larger scale and with less pressure on our team members. Our Operations Manager, Tim Greene reflected “Now we are in the final spaces and teams can spread out, we can achieve our goals more efficiently without the need for extended shifts or overtime. We have more capacity to store components and to produce a wider range of products. During the renovations we looked at potential capacity restrictions and addressed these by separating and in some cases duplicating machines, test equipment and bench setups, so we can produce higher volumes within the same timeframes.”
The renovations of ‘the Chiptech block’ aren’t just about expanding our facility—they’re about creating a space that reflects the needs of our staff, our commitment to sustainability, quality and continuous improvement. With high-tech systems, custom testing, and optimised workflows, we’re ready to meet the demands of today and scale for tomorrow.
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