With the opening of its 172,000-square-foot manufacturing center in Upper Burrell, Philips Respironics will be busier than ever making sure everyone else gets their rest.

On 34 acres in the Westmoreland Business & Research Park, the building already hums like a well-oiled machine. Soft color tones, bright lighting, enough energy efficiencies to make it LEED-worthy -- to say nothing of a workout room, paved walking path and regulation-size outdoor basketball court -- create an efficient and appealing workplace.

"The facility looks nice, but what I'm excited about is what's happening inside the walls," said Donald Spence, CEO of Philips Home Healthcare Solutions.

For now, the primary products being built, boxed and shipped here are a base unit and a humidifier for Respironics' sleep therapy line, designed to help those with obstructive sleep apnea to get a restful night's sleep.

But there's plenty of room for expansion beyond the current six 85-foot conveyors.

With a planned global launch in two weeks of its latest generation model of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) and Bi-level Positive Airway Pressure (BiPAP) devices, they'll need it.

Already, Respironics products are sold in 141 countries, including every one represented at the Pittsburgh G-20 summit last week and, not surprisingly, Mr. Spence says, "We're looking for our business to grow in the future."

The building was 2 1/2 years in the making, when the company was still a solo act. But its acquisition by Philips in March 2008 didn't amount to so much as a speed bump for construction.

"We had already planned to go down this path," said Mr. Spence, adding that Philips officials "fully endorsed" the move. "We were just running out of space. We didn't have the room to do what we knew we could do."

The new structure is billed as a "manufacturing center of excellence," which may sound overly grand. But "factory" doesn't capture it either.

Yes, operators still stand in a production assembly line, putting together parts. The conveyer moves at a steady pace, but one operator said that was no problem once they got their rhythm.

With the frontline operators' input, they've built a production line that is well lit and is more ergonomic.

The noise and messiness traditionally associated with manufacturing plants are absent. No hard hats, earplugs or other safety equipment are needed (although a few jobs in the back require steel-toed shoes).

The closest thing to a mess is a machine that cuts and forms packing boxes, located on the other side of a wall from the production line.

The frontline operators were integrally involved in the design, a point Mr. Spence made sound like an obvious choice. "Who knows better about building CPAP than the people who are building them every day?"

It's all part of an aggressive "employee engagement" program at Respironics, said Manufacturing Manager Jim Lander, which encourages workers to submit and implement ideas for improvements.

Employees also had a choice of whether they wanted to move to the new plant, or remain at the one adjacent to the headquarters building seven miles closer to Pittsburgh.

All but a handful moved, putting the workforce at the new plant at 325 by year's end. There are no immediate plans to increase the workforce.

Parts of the process are newly automated. Assembling literature packets, which used to require 10 people working shifts over a 24-hour day, now is done by two people. "We're able to do a day's worth of production in just a few hours," said Mr. Lander.

He also pointed out some quality control safeguards, starting with bar coded parts to assure correct assembly and finishing with a final weigh-in of the boxed product to make sure nothing's amiss.

The scale is so sensitive that, after several boxes were being tagged as too heavy, an investigation found it was because a supplier had used two rubber bands instead of one to bind some tubing.

The old plant in Murrysville will remain active but will be reengineered to handle more specialized products. The new facility is all about what Mr. Lander calls "low mix, high volume" production.

The company's fortunes have been on the upswing, with sales growing from $7 million in 1986 to $1 billion by 2006 (following the Philips acquisition, sales figures for individual units have not been disclosed).

Although they now have a global reach, Mr. Spence said the new plant also is evidence of the company's commitment to staying in the local area.

"We had such a strong employee base, it was hard to imagine going anywhere else," he said.

"Money Q&A" and "Company Town" are featured exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.