PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
How to prepare for a return to 'normal' surgical instrument demand The right CMO can help manufacturers facing a surge in orders for surgical instruments.
W Steve Santoro | Micro |
hen elective surgeries return to pre-pandemic levels, hospitals will be gearing up to stock their shelves with medical instruments. Single-use surgical devices such as scissors, graspers, forceps and dissectors will be in high demand due to their inherent benefit of reducing spread of infection. One of the most critical components of these instruments is the shaft, which must meet strict diameter requirements while housing critical-to-function subassemblies. Most often, these shafts are made from stainless steel tubing, which may be manufactured from drawn tubing or by using an innovative stamped-and-rolled technique. Features and volume help to determine which approach will be better suited to a given project. The tubing approach Drawn tubing allows for better control of some features such as straightness or diameter consistency, particularly when tightly controlled dimensions are required throughout the entire length of the metal tube shaft. This method of tubing also produces a more robust result when creating specific end features such as expansions or reductions, flaring and flanging, and end sharpening. In addition, drawn tubing enables other processes, such as piercing and slotting, precision sharpening, electropolishing and laser welding, coupled with customer assemblies and environmentally friendly cleaning systems. Rolled tubing is a revolutionary process in which a “rolled” tube is manufactured using a progressive stamping die, allowing for a finished tube to drop from a high-speed press at a rate of one per second. Features such as windows and slots can be added in the flat blank stage, before being “rolled” into a
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Medical Design & Outsourcing
11 • 2020
Image courtesy of Micro
finished tube. Rolled tube technology is best suited for high-volume orders such as those greater than 300,000 pieces. This approach to tubing helps to reduce production time, component costs and secondary operations for the manufacturing of endoscopic subassemblies. Innovative technologies such as rolled tubing can provide a cost-effective and efficient way to achieve more advanced features such as holes, slots and windows on larger-volume projects. Design for manufacturability For OEMs that need to rapidly bring products to market, design for manufacturability (DFM) will be essential. DFM provides an effective approach to identifying issues or product challenges as early as the design stage. The pressures are even higher on design engineers because they face cost targets, time-to-market and other factors. DFM can help cut down on the number of times additional prototype iterations are required and help to smooth out the manufacturing process by removing unwarranted steps, which saves on
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