Mark Shortt
Competitive pressures are nothing new to manufacturers of medical devices and equipment. Among the most intense are the demands to reduce time to market and production cycles for their products.
But getting to market more quickly is an even greater challenge when faced with the need to maintain strict quality standards and regulatory compliance during the development and manufacturing of innovative new products. In their efforts to speed product innovation, commercial readiness, and production times, medical OEMs are integrating dynamic design and manufacturing technologies into their operations.
One example is 3D printing, a group of technologies that enable users to shorten product development cycles by eliminating traditional tooling requirements. Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, a provider of on-demand manufacturing services, uses 3D printing to make components with complex geometries for the medical industry. The parts are reported to include “patient-specific components that traditional methods cannot achieve.”
“By adopting 3D printing, medical manufacturers can reduce development times, create highly customized components, and innovate faster than with traditional manufacturing methods,” the company stated in a release. For more, see Stratasys Direct Achieves ISO 13485 Certification, Meeting Stringent Regulatory Requirements for Medical Device Manufacturers.
Medical manufacturers are also increasingly adopting automation and robotics. A recently established framework collaboration agreement between the medical technology company Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) and Biosero, a developer of laboratory automation software and mobile robot integrations, is intended to enable the integration of robotic arms with BD flow cytometry instruments to help speed drug discovery and development
In a typical lab, the flow cytometry workflow for drug discovery and development includes multiple steps that have traditionally required manual processes. By integrating robotic arms into its workflow, BD can save valuable time by replacing potentially hundreds of steps that previously required human intervention, according to a joint release from the companies.
“Automation is increasingly paramount for biopharma companies and contract research organizations whose high-throughput drug screening and cell therapy manufacturing efforts rely on the scalability, reproducibility, quality, and speed that robotic integration can provide,” said Steve Conly, worldwide president of BD Biosciences, in the release.
Today, technology is driving the evolution of smarter, more sophisticated components and systems for the medical industry. As a result, companies are finding more opportunities to integrate mechanical, electro-mechanical, and electronic parts and sensors—as well as embedded modules, frameless motors, and other advanced technologies—into increasingly capable medical systems that provide greater speed, precision, and accuracy.
In one example, the radiosurgery technology company ZAP Surgical Systems, Inc., is collaborating with Orfit Industries to integrate Orfit’s state-of-the-art patient positioning and immobilization system into ZAP Surgical’s ZAP-X® Gyroscopic Radiosurgery® platform. The enhanced platform, reported to ensure superior patient comfort and accuracy during treatments, has been adopted by leading clinical centers across the world, according to a release from Orfit.
For medical OEMs, these technology integrations are made possible by the efforts of talented engineers, as the OEM’s engineers work collaboratively with their contract manufacturing partner’s engineers. One such partner is Nordex, Inc., a manufacturer of mechanical and electro-mechanical power transmission components that specializes in custom gears for the medical and other high-growth industries. In addition to crafting custom components, Nordex leverages its engineering expertise by providing fully integrated, turnkey subsystems.
“Ten percent of our employees have engineering degrees, and we work with our customers to optimize their designs for manufacturability and cost,” said Dan Agius, Jr., a mechanical engineer who serves as the company’s chief financial officer, in an emailed response to Design-2-Part. “With some customers, we have worked to completely redesign their products for significant functionality improvements and cost savings.”
Another example of a contract manufacturing partner with strong engineering capabilities is TQ-Systems USA, an electronics engineering and manufacturing services (E2MS) company with U.S. headquarters in Chesapeake, Virginia. According to Brandon Aumiller, an aerospace engineer by training who serves as TQ-Systems USA’s Director of Sales for Embedded Products and EMS, the company is a full turn-key service provider. It offers technologies that integrate easily into customers’ designs, increasing flexibility and reducing time to market.
“We use our expertise in engineering services to guide our customers, to help them make smart design decisions, to assure longevity and, especially, component availability, right from the beginning, so they won’t have to worry about going through recertifications down the line,” Aumiller told Design-2-Part in a phone interview.
For the medical industry, TQ’s offerings include embedded computer modules, which integrate into its customer’s designs and are said to typically reduce time to market by six to nine months, and frameless motors, which combine light weight with high torque density to give customers greater flexibility in their product designs.
The high torque density of the frameless motors, manufactured by TQ’s RoboDrive Division, is said to be particularly beneficial for customers who are currently designing robotics applications, from medical robots to automation systems and humanoids.
“Having such a high torque motor that performs so well at such a light weight—that type of technology is what drives these robotic applications, and these robotic applications are the future in operating rooms across the world,” said TQ-Systems USA Director of Sales for Drive Products David Hastings, in the interview. “These types of technologies are really what’s evolving, and why robotics is exploding in the medical industry.”