HOF Sonderanlagenbau
Quality is key...

Founded in 1988, HOF has developed to one of the top suppliers for pharmaceutical freeze-drying equipment, meaning freeze dryers from the laboratory scale up to production maximal production sizes, as well as specific loading and unloading devices. Furthermore, units for rapid freezing and thawing of medical and biotech products are part of our portfolio.

Nevertheless, HOF has no standard product catalogue: every system or installation is individually designed for the customer’s needs – performance parameters, space availability and room limitations as well as specified components and materials are incorporated.

“Just in time quality for our demanding customers is our valid philosophy for every single project”

…advise, innovation, technology, manufacture, quality and expertise. These six arguments are the fundamental basis for every project. All departments and groups involved in a customized project adjust their actions towards these criteria, always focusing on the company’s philosophy and therefore to meet all expectations towards quality, functionality and timing.

Beginning with the first Draft-Layout and the review of the ‘user requirement specification’, all parties involved work hand in hand to maximize the efficiency in the workflow and to present the best results possible. This claim is met throughout the complete runtime of a project until the final acceptance tests at the customer’s site.

Knowing that production downtimes or product losses are inacceptable for our customers and often directly connected to financial losses, active and efficient service is our main focus with customers already operating freeze-drying equipment.

In line with our philosophy, our 24-7 on call service is able to react to any kind of failure, no matter whether it is concerning a mechanical problem, wear and tear parts or software and automation issues. The combination of our warehouse with more than 60,000 different spare parts together with over 60 specifically trained service technicians is able keep downtimes to a minimum. Accordingly, the well-equipped car pool, with more than 70 vehicles, allows short reaction times. Many specific cars are already stocked with individual tools and general spares. Most of our lead technicians even take an individually assigned service vehicle home to enable short reaction times also outside of our weekly opening hours.

Service as an essential column for a reliable production also involves maintenance and recalibration on a frequent basis. In total, we service more than 1600 installations worldwide. Not only HOF products, but also products of other brands and trade names.

For more than 25 years, HOF Sonderanlagenbau GmbH has been developing for-ward-looking technologies, nationally and internationally. An important requirement for all company departments is to develop and plan the future today. HOF employees focus on the technological innovations with the objective to meet new customers’ specific requirements.

The company’s aim for the future is to remain an innovative pioneer in research and development of freeze-drying systems. innovative charging systems, flexible shelf adjustment, use of liquid nitrogen and natural refrigerants, control integration of advanced measuring systems such as NIR and mass spectrometers, HOF SynchroFreeze and vacuum insulation: these are some examples for the company‘s innovative potential and willingness to take on new approaches.

HOF SynchroFreeze is a future oriented technology. This procedure allows a homogeneous freezing thanks to a synchronized nucleation during the freezing process – with a simultaneous reduction of the drying time.

This innovation of HOF, registered for patent approval, provides the customer with further tools to quality improvement of the pharmaceutical product and to more efficiency.
HOF SynchroFreeze distinguishes itself through a high process reliability and the possibility for retrofitting of existing freeze-drying systems.

Brief Overview of HOF SynchroFreeze:
• Synchronization of freezing process in individual vials and product containers
• Increase of the product homogeneity
• Conditioning of product structure
• Reduction of drying times