Shield Medicare pumps up its expansion

Shield Medicare is developing its 15000ft² manufacturing facility in Ystradgynlais near Swansea, Wales, following a doubling in sales demand over the past two years.

The company, which manufactures cleanroom contamination control products, has trebled output in all areas of cleanroom manufacturing, an increase which it says has been helped by installing two Watson-Marlow Bredel peristaltic pumps that replaced manual dispensing at the facility. Shield installed the two pumps – a 605Di/L and a 624Di/L – to dispense cleanroom disinfectant agent into one litre spray bottles. The accuracy of the dosage of 70% alcohol in the product is important because the bottles feature the "bag in bottle" Sterishield delivery system. The company says it looked at a number of options before deciding that the Watson-Marlow Bredel pumps offered the best technique for cleanroom filling. Peristaltic pumps are different from other positive displacement pumps in that they have no valves, seals or glands and the pumped fluid contacts only the bore of an elastomeric hose or tube and not any of moving parts. This is said to give the pumps a considerable advantage in maintaining sterility and also leads to lower maintenance, higher reliability and simpler cleaning. According to Watson-Marlow Bredel, these advantages, plus simple installation and ease of use, have helped them become the world's fastest-growing pump type for flows from microlitres to 80m³/hr and pressures up to 16 bar. Andrew Richards, production manager, said: "We looked at alternatives, but the decision was based on recommendation from within the industry on after sales support, cost and size of tubing combined with accuracy and output volume. We tested the Sta-Pure tubing and the results have been excellent. We've saved a lot of time and money in reduced maintenance and spare parts. "The tubing has lasted 14 months, which is quite remarkable when considering the nature of the product and the volumes that the tube has been handling on a daily basis. As our business grows we're looking at other applications that could benefit from using peristaltic pumps." The pumps run five hours a day, five days a week, pumping over 15000L of sterilising agent a week. Shield Medicare, which was established 12 years ago and now has over 60 employees, sells 70% of its products into the UK.