The common ingredients for these companies include significant manufacturing expertise in their respective niches, clean environments and not surprisingly, an enduring commitment to training and development.

Sartorius BBI Systems, Inc.

One of the reasons for setting the bar high are the high standards that must be adhered to because of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. “If the FDA does not directly stipulate guidelines for us, then the Administration is setting requirements for our customers to meet,” says Duane Piechocki, senior vice president, Sartorius BBI Systems, Inc., Bethlehem , PA. “The FDA may not audit us, but they will audit our customers and that means we must be in compliance, too.”

Sartorius is a multi-national firm with $500 million in sales. Its BBI division, located in Bethlehem , was acquired by the company in 2000. The local division designs and fabricates bio-reactors and fermenters for the biotech industry. “Our new location in LVIP VI consolidated five locations into one new building,” says Piechocki. “There are over 100 employees here which is one of four international locations and one of the Biotechnology Division's five business units.” German-held, the company dominates with highest market share in the global bioreactor marketplace.

“Training and development requirements are built right into annual employee reviews,” says Piechocki. “We believe to be successful, we must continue to make training a real focus, and we use a mix of in-house and outside expertise. The benefit to our organization is the increased efficiency which increases quality and reduces cost.”

Sartorius BBI Systems has had an ongoing relationship with CBI for some time, utilizing standard industrial technology courses such as safety training and welding. Recently, the company was awarded a CJT grant being administered through NCC's Center. “The QMS program – Quality Management Systems – reinforces the systems approach we believe is important to our success,” says Piechocki. “Our quality assurance team has taken a leading role in this type of training, and this extensive grant will go a long way realizing our growth objectives.”

Sartorius was founded by a professor. Today, the company's German headquarters location includes Sartorius College . Its philosophy remains, “Acquisition and transfer of new knowledge are key entrepreneurial tasks and a major part of securing every company's future.” For this American business unit, the biotechnology commitment to education is much the same. www.sartorius.com

Bio Med Sciences, Inc.

When you are an innovator like Bio Med Sciences, Inc., a leader in the advanced wound care and scar management fields, the continual need to stay on top of training and education stems from the company's sterile environment requirements and its entrepreneurial pace needed to remain competitive. Privately-held, Bio Med was founded in the Lehigh Valley in 1987, and recently moved to new quarters in an industrial park in west Allentown . There are approximately 15 employees and the company distributes its highly specialized products to American hospitals, the US Army direct and through sales reps to foreign lands such as Thailand , Korea and Canada .

“Our work is FDA-regulated work,” says Bob Kimmel, Bio Med's quality assurance manager. “We have a skilled team of R&D professionals dedicated to the sciences of health care and related to improving the quality of healing for patients around the world.” The company's Silon-IPN technology – proprietary technology covered with 16 issued patents – transforms into healing products sold for burn treatment, plastic surgery, dermatology, long-term care and rehabilitation markets. “The Silon products wear longer and that helps skin to heal itself faster and with less intrusion to the healing process.”

“There are two distinct areas that we focus our educational efforts,” says Kimmel. “With the FDA requiring written procedures, we review procedures on an ongoing basis to ensure accuracy. When a procedure changes in the manufacturing process, we must correct that procedure in writing. There is internal training to do reviews of these functions.”

“Our actual production environment is a controlled environment with the goal of keeping out particulate matter,” says Kimmel. “So our employees, armed with hair nets, gloves, lab jackets and coats, must take processing to an art form, and this requires training. The office procedures we operate under are pretty straight forward.”

“All in all, training encompasses for the average employee about ½ day every quarter for internal updating and one or two external courses per person each year.” www.silon.com

Precision Medical Inc.

Founded in 1985, Precision Medical, Inc. a privately owned company, is the nation's largest manufacturer of flowmeters. It is an ISO 9001 registered company, located in Northampton , PA , and employs 150 people. Precision manufactures respiratory products including the world's smallest oxygen regulator, oxygen conserving devices, nebulizer compressors, air compressors, vacuum regulators and flow meters. Its products are supplied to hospitals, homecare providers, long-term care homes, sub-acute wards, EMS and related healthcare markets worldwide.

As director of training, Tim Deuerling foresees the company's growth tied directly to training and development. “As we grow, we are highly dependent on training and development for our employees to grow with us.

“We have been very pleased with the training support the Center for Business & Industry at NCC provides,” says Deuerling. “The company wide computer training program for us was very successful. Over two years, the College's team would come on-site and bring laptops customized for our 30 or so office employees to learn Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Access. We are now all on the same page, and much more efficient.”

NCC also provided training for better business writing, how to negotiate and others to improve management processes. “In fact, we are currently working on a CJT grant with the state to develop a management course for our people and Northampton will play a large part in the training.” says Deuerling. “Sales training however is done in-house for both direct sales people and for the manufacturer independent representatives. This is product-oriented and requires product knowledge.” www.precisionmedical.com

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