Brentwood Industries has opened a New Product Development (NPD) Lab at its Reading, PA, facility, aiming to accelerate the design and production of thermoformed packaging for medical, dental, electronics, and pharmaceutical applications.
The lab is equipped with advanced tools including a 3D scanner, a semi-automatic thermoformer, and other prototyping equipment. The company said the setup enables a faster and more integrated transition from concept to production, offering capabilities such as rapid prototyping, high-precision measurement, and sample creation in a single location.
Tim Joseph, vice president of Medical and Custom Solutions, said the lab reflects Brentwood’s continued investment in supporting customer development needs.
“We have made significant progress bolstering our design engineering experience by adding new talent with more than 60 years of combined expertise in thermoform design and tooling,” Joseph said.
The NPD Lab is located next to Brentwood’s ISO Class 7 cleanroom at its 621 Brentwood Drive facility. The company said the lab will help reduce time to market by allowing designers and partners to test and refine packaging designs earlier in the development process.
A customer resource
Brentwood, a long-time supplier of thermoformed packaging, said it is positioning the lab as a resource for customers seeking faster development cycles and enhanced design collaboration.
With 3D printing for prototype tools and semi-automatic sample thermoforming, medical device companies will be able to create, test, and refine packaging designs in record time, said the company. Customers no longer will have to wait weeks for production tooling. The solutions let customers iterate and optimize within days, said Brentwood.
Brentwood Medical, a division of Brentwood Industries Inc., is focused on custom thermoplastic packaging and components for the medical, dental, pharmaceutical, and electronics sectors. Headquartered in Reading, PA, the second-generation, family-owned company provides thermoplastic molding and engineered plastic systems across a range of industries. The company’s capabilities support a diverse product portfolio and extensive manufacturing operations.
Facility south of the border
Brentwood Industries also has a manufacturing facility in Tijuana, Mexico, that opened in early 2018 as the company's first international expansion focused on custom thermoformed medical packaging. The facility includes a 7,500-square-foot ISO Class 7 cleanroom and serves clients across North, Central, and South America. In 2023, Brentwood expanded the Tijuana location by adding 100,000 square feet of production space to support growing demand and enhance thermoforming development capabilities.
