Heraeus Noblelight UK confirms expansion plans

Since the recent announcement of our move to Northstowe, careful planning and preparation of all aspects of the move are progressing well. We are very excited to share more updates throughout next year.

But for now, we wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from all of us in Cambridge.

Heraeus Noblelight has announced that following a significant investment from the German parent company, they are able to re-locate their production and research facilities into a larger, purpose designed premises in Northstowe, North Cambridge.

The much-anticipated move will enable Heraeus to increase manufacturing capacities to double the output in 5 years; reducing lead times for customers and ensuring that we have a “best in class” manufacturing facility, leading the way in workplace safety and environmentally aware manufacturing.
This project will be undertaken in multiple stages, to minimize any production disruption. With the first steps already underway, the estimated completion date is early 2024.

More updates on the progress of the move will be shared here.

Starting in 1979, as one of the original companies on what is now the Cambridge Science Park, Noblelight, (now Heraeus Noblelight), has been rooted in innovation and product development from inception. Originally founded with only three employees, Noblelight began by focusing on and developing excitation lamps for lasers.

In 1987 the company became a part of the Heraeus Group, which has been delivering advanced technologies across the globe for more than 160 years. This new ownership provided stronger financial backing and access to advanced lamp manufacturing technology including quartz glass expertise.

The growing usage of lasers for research and industrial applications, drove rapid market and product development. Heraeus Noblelight developed the first “long life” continuous laser lamps, named the Supalamp Series. This brought the benefit of significantly increased operating life from utilising flash lamp technologies to the mass market, and intern drove the expansion of new industrial customer application areas. Over the last fifteen years we have developed our own automated flash lamp manufacturing processes. As a result, we are proud to have received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise three times, most recently in 2015. These pioneering processes improved quality and operating life to such a degree that flash lamps now see continued use in applications previously predicted to lose out to other technologies.

As previously mentioned Noblelight, now Heraeus Noblelight, was a founding presence on what is now the Cambridge science park and has been based locally since 1979. The original building, 161 was built in 1983 as a purpose-built facility, designed for the companies flashlamp manufacturing processes.
Over the years this facility has undergone many changes, however it has simply become too small to be able to respond to current market demands, leading to the decision to move to a larger facility. This opportunity to completely redesign the production floor will enable streamlining production cells, increase efficiency and reduce lead times. All employees being under the same roof will ensure we continue to innovate and drive the future of flashlamp technologies.