Barco clean room churns out 70 pristine cinema projector engines daily

July 26, 2018
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Factory for the Future focuses on technology innovation and automation

When it comes to manufacturing Barco’s world-leading cinema projectors, cleanliness is a top priority! That’s why we built our new 161,000+ sq ft cinema manufacturing and engineering facility (affectionately nicknamed The Engine) to include a multimillion-dollar clean room for fabricating the sealed optical engines and laser clusters.  

We spoke with Bjorn Ghekiere, Line Supervisor, to get his insights on the clean room experience.

 

1.    What is the function of the clean room in the production process?
The clean room is a separate area on the production floor where we fabricate the engines and laser clusters for our projectors. In this area, we control the temperature, humidity and airborne dust particles as this is necessary to maintain the quality of our products. 

 

2.    Some facts and figures: how big is the space? How many operators? How much time do you spend on the cleaning process? How many projectors do you clean/day on average? 
On an average day, 50 operators are working to assemble ~70 engines a day, with each requiring three to five hours for completion. The clean room has a surface area of 1150 m².

 

3.    What is the purpose of the air shower?
Th air shower is a very important tool we use to convey our materials into the clean room in a controlled way. Before we pass any parts into the clean room, we place them on a wire cart and pass it through the air shower. The shower literally blows off all the dust onto the ground, which is subsequently sucked away and filtered.  
 

4.    What skills do you need to work in the clean room?
To work in the clean room, operators should have good assembly skills and be very precise and careful.

 

5.    What do you like in your job?
The combination of working with people and working in a technical environment with a job package that is very diversified is what I love about this job.

 

Learn more about Barco’s Factory for the Future

Bjorn Ghekiere is a Line Supervisor working at the Factory for the Future. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Katholieke Hogeschool Zuid-West-Vlaanderen. He started his career at Barco in 2007 as a Repair Technician and rose to the level of Line Supervisor where he has worked for the past six years.