
Novas Manufacturing Group consists of the personnel and infrastructure
to support manufacturing engineering, materials management, quality control/assurance,
purchasing, scheduling, and production functions. Our state-of-the-art production
facilities incorporate sophisticated manufacturing equipment to provide high
quality, reliable products at an agreed upon schedule and price.
Key areas of expertise include:
Full printed circuit board capability
both surface mount and through hole boards
Automated reagent mixing, filling and sealing
Final system assembly and test
Full in-house plastics molding and machine shop (over 170 molds produced)
State-of-the-art information systems (paperless factory)

At Nova, quality begins before the raw materials ever enter our factory. Our
Supplier Quality Engineering (SQE) program assures that each of the suppliers
we select is certified to meet stringent product quality standards. Moreover,
periodic evaluations are conducted to assure that these standards are constantly
maintained.
During a development or manufacturing program,
our innovative quality control program establishes cross-functional quality
teams including members of our clients staffs to proactively address
quality and operational issues throughout the project duration. This intensive
philosophy results in an internal level of quality that deliberately surpasses
our clients requirements.

Our standard quality procedures include organization and training, incoming
QA,
in-process inspection, full system functional testing, and statistical analysis.
Importantly, we also form a Product Line Quality Committee (PLQC) for each
product; each PLQC is comprised of Nova and client participants. The PLQC
is an oversight group that proactively addresses a wide range of quality and
operational issues before they could reach a problem stage.

With a goal to improve the quality of each product and reduce its manufacturing
cost, Nova provides cost reduction and manufacturing engineering support to
each client on an ongoing basis.

In contrast to many contract manufacturers, Nova does not time share
its production resources. Instead, Nova dedicates manufacturing personnel
as well as space and inventory resources to each individual project.
This focused factory approach clearly identifies
responsibility and promotes the most effective operation and management throughout
the manufacturing process.


Among the capabilities that separates Nova from other manufacturers is our
ability to accommodate a broad spectrum of projects from simple to complex,
low to high volume, including reagents and/or instrumentation. The following
examples demonstrate our current range of instrument manufacturing capabilities:

|