A catch up with Connect 2 Cleanrooms newly appointed managing director

Medical Plastics News editor Laura Hughes caught up with Connect 2 Cleanroom’s (C2C's) newly appointed Managing Director (MD), Michael Wright.

What do you think are the latest trends within cleanrooms?

The principles of Industry 4.0 and the relentless progression of the digital age will continue to change our entire perception about how we interact with facilities and systems. I think the development of fully integrated data assurance and reporting integrity will have an increasingly large influence, well beyond the current impact and expectations for critical sterile environments.

Additionally, our comprehensive digital site surveys coupled with utilising material requirements planning systems ensure that we minimise the amount of construction and material conversion processes that take place on a client’s site. This minimises disruption and enables us to configure cleanrooms from a huge library of known components and controlled interfaces. I anticipate that there will be continued development in this area within the industry over the coming years.

How do you see the company growing over the next few years?

The company is at a really exciting point in its development. We have supported a significant number of new companies to become cleanroom users as well as partnering with some of the most experienced and impressive industry leaders in their respective fields.

I think the cleanroom market is a fascinating and exciting place to exist but provides certain challenges to solutions providers like C2C. Our customers are very varied in the structure and support they require so we need to be able to present the right sector language and alignment to fulfil the individual needs of a range of industries whilst also maintaining our own unique identity. Our intention is for customers to see us more as an integrated service provider, that adds value to their processes rather than just a product provider.

What do you believe are the main challenges for the manufacturers of plastics for medical devices within cleanrooms?

While manufacturers need to remain competitive and efficient, they also need to ensure that they can provide clear auditable evidence of effective process control and this expectation will only grow.

I would also anticipate that the increased development of digitised and patient-specific devices targeted to individuals rather than batch manufactured devices will place entirely different pressures on the approaches taken by manufacturers.

Finally, another challenge we come across in cleanrooms within plastics manufacturing is the harmonious pairing of process automation and meeting the required particulate control specification. This requires close collaboration between cleanroom designer and equipment manufacturer.

Wright was previously head of operations within C2C and succeeds founding director Joe Govier who has now moved in to a CEO role.