Current Process

Biopsy needle notches are machined using milling, conventional abrasive grinding, or wire EDM.

Challenges

Exposing the material to high heat can affect the chemistry and mechanical properties of the material requiring manual secondary finishing operations. Setup and production are slow, requiring extensive mechanical adjustments. Frequent wheel dressing causes faster wearing, resulting in higher tooling costs.

Current Process

Kirschner wires, also commonly known as K-wires, are ground using a manual OD grinder.

Challenges

Low production output, as only one wire can be ground at a time. Changeover between wire diameters is time-consuming, delaying production. Grinding can leave burrs requiring secondary processes to deburr, lengthening production time.

Current Process

A high-powered laser beam cuts the tubing by melting it leaving a rough edge and slag. Tubes and other parts are typically cut one at a time limiting production rates.

Challenges

Heat sensitive applications may limit the use of the laser for cutting. Laser cutting leaves recast and heat-affected zones, affecting the tube's quality and increasing scrap rates. Beam deflection when cutting through a tube can affect accuracy and cause damage. Laser cutting is not capable of creating clean and sharp edges. Therefore, time-consuming secondary processes to deburr tubes and remove any debris are required. Delivering a process that cuts tubes to length, maintains a high level of quality and accuracy, leaves no recast or slag, and improves production times.

Current Process:

Narrow work wheels prevent generating tapers over 4" requiring multiple setups to generate the shape. Highly skilled technicians are required to ensure proper setup. Upper and lower slides are strapped, preventing the regulating wheel and work rest blade from being adjusted independently. Wheel dressing is applied manually, which leads to inconsistent wheel conditions. Blade sizing is conducted manually leading to variability in setup longevity.

Challenges:

Deliver a process that can grind up to 8" tapers on guidewires in one pass while maintaining quality and repeatability. Decrease downtime related to setup and complicated changeovers. The process must meet CE Certification standards for operator safety.

Challenge

Cycle time reduction while maintaining overall machine uptime resulting in increased throughput. Added versatility to the control system allowing process improvement through actionable reporting. Reducing maintenance such as wheel dressing to increase up time. NiTi is a difficult material to shape due to its high nickel content, moreover, a smooth surface finish is critical to prevent part failure.

Challenge

Converted OD grinders with custom tooling and soft grinding wheels all of which wear at a high rate. Setup and changeover time is significant and requires extensive mechanical adjustments. Parts, in most cases, must be taped for handling requiring additional steps in the production process. Primary cut leaves a large ID burr which must be removed in a secondary process step such as grit blasting or electro-polishing. Complex needle points, i.e. Menghini points, require separate primary bevel cut and secondary sharpening, leading to long cycle times.

Develop a solution that delivers a process eliminating taping, pre and post processing, allows for quick set-up and changeover, and is capable of handling all variety of points used in the industry.

Challenge

Parts are cut using abrasive cutting saws, conventional abrasive grinding, wire EDM or laser cutting; slow processes resulting in long cycle times. Potential to expose material to high heat leading to heat affected zones, recast, and slag. Requires secondary process to deburr parts and remove any surface debris which reduces productivity.

Design a process that can provide a burr free cut without recast, slag, or heat damage while maintaining a high quality part and reducing cycle time. Reduce the number of steps in the production process.

Challenge

The arthroscopic shaver teeth are commonly produced by conventional abrasive grinding, wire EDM, or laser cutting; slow processes resulting in long cycle times. EDM and laser cutting burn away the metal at high temperatures leaving changes to the metal surface including a heat affected zone, recast, and slag. Laser cutting requires significant post processing to produce an acceptable sharp edge and surface finish. Conventional grinding requires a secondary process of deburring without damaging the cutting edge. It also involves frequent wheel dressing to maintain the correct form.

Design a process that can cut shaver teeth burr free, without recast, slag, or heat damage that improves cycle times.

Challenge

Tubes are cut one at a time using a standard abrasive cutting saw which leaves burrs. Requires secondary process of wire brushing and tumbling to deburr tubes and remove any debris. Older machines have poor accuracy and outdated safety features. Debris from abrasive cuts cause frequent maintenance issues.

Design a process that can cut multiple tubes burr free simultaneously without damage from debris. Reduce the number of steps in the production process. Provide a machine that won’t deteriorate over time.

Challenge

Numerous manufacturers around the world find themselves with legacy equipment incapable of meeting the changing environmental and safety standards recommended by regulatory standards. The customer in this case was operating an outdated grinding system lacking mist control with minimal safety features.

Maintain CE safety and environmental standards without hampering the functionality of the machine. Thrufeed grind 0.003”- 0.006” of material from steel tubes with a tolerance of +/- 0.0002 and achieving a superior surface finish. Lastly, the customer required the ability to connect the machine to the intranet for data gathering, monitoring and remote diagnostics.

 Challenge

The operator would manually feed the stainless steel orthopedic pins into the centerless grinder then manually clean and gauge each pin. Manual input and adjustment were required during the process to ensure quality.

Increase process throughput and quality production by integrating automation. Produce a part every 13 seconds in an automated “lights out” system. Reduce the opportunity for damaging critical features in material handling.

Current Process:

A legacy thrufeed centerless grinder with a narrow work wheel is used. Multiple passes to grind the Nitinol tubes to size are required. Highly skilled technicians are necessary to ensure proper setup.

Challenges: 

Long cycle time limits output per shift. Multiple passes can reduce the quality of the tubes. Shorter work wheels apply too much pressure on thin-walled tubing resulting in deformed parts.

Challenge: The customer is looking for a turnkey, one operation automated process allowing a single pass solution for Stainless Steel Bone Pins, for example.

Challenge: To grind two mating metal components, with a tight clearance requirement between their surfaces, to create a powered arthroscopic shaver used in orthopaedic joint surgeries.

Challenge: To grind two mating metal components, with a tight clearance requirement between their surfaces, to create a powered arthroscopic shaver used in orthopaedic joint surgeries.

Challenge: To size implantable spinal cord stimulation devices that deliver precise doses of electricity to targeted nerve sites for patients suffering from chronic back problems. The device is long and flexible, which made it difficult to handle. It is also constructed of dissimilar materials of varying diameters, from metal conductive rings to fine electrical micro-wires to molded polymer and plastic supports, which made grinding a fine surface finish with stringent diameter control and without damage to the parts very challenging.

Asthma inhalers are comprised of a medicine canister fitting inside a plastic sleeve. When the patient pushes the canister, the stem, a small metal pin, releases an actuator inside the sleeve allowing the medication to be released and inhaled by the patient. The stem must mate properly with the actuator to ensure the medication is dispersed properly. Any defect could cause the device to fail.

Current Process & Challenges: Slow Production, High Labor and Integration Costs

Asthma inhaler pins are ground one at a time using multiple production lines and automation integrations. This setup requires a large footprint to meet high demand. Labor and numerous automation integration costs are expensive.

Challenge: To thrufeed grind ceramic pellets, which are used to manufacture radiopharmaceuticals (radiotracers) used in CT scans. The pellet count had to be tracked through the machine and the customer needed to measure a set frequency of parts that would be programmable. In addition to accounting for all the components, the machine had to separate the set number of parts processed for data collection.

Challenge: Cycle time reduction and a sharp corner needed for a medical guidewire

Challenge:  To size thin walled tubing used for surgical instruments insuring a mirror like 3Ra finish.

Challenge: To process trocar points automatically where small lot sizes require frequent equipment changeover. 

Challenge: To eliminate additional processes in the production of guidewires. The conventional process uses several machines to profile a shape in an interventional guidewire.

Challenge: A Medical device customer needed to rapidly changeover between a family of Nitinol guidewires having various lengths and geometries. Since the geometry of the components varied in length, the customer needed to change tooling over frequently, a process that can take up to 4 hours. Also, rapidly removing over 30% of the the material as it thrufeeds into the machine accelerated tool wear on the existing system and as tooling degrades, dimensional integrity suffers.

Challenge: To point and shape catheter bodies free of debris and scratches, at high production rates.

Challenge: Infeed grinding 0.010”  on two diameters over a 7” long metal drill blank in one operation while maintaining 0.0002” diameter accuracy, .00006 roundness and maintaining part straightness and concentricity.