【Waterjet Processing】Is Waterjet Cutting the Next Technological Revolution? A New Dawn for the Medical Device Manufacturing Industry!
The medical device industry currently faces constantly changing challenges. With increasing development cost pressures and the growing difficulty of maintaining quality, medical device manufacturers are seeking new technologies to streamline production processes while reducing costs.
To address the upcoming challenges, the solution is a new wave of desktop manufacturing technologies, such as a waterjet cutting machine. Manufacturers can rapidly prototype and validate concepts, provide localized and customized processing, use specialized materials, and create tools to maintain high-volume production lines.
To address the upcoming challenges, the solution is a new wave of desktop manufacturing technologies, such as a waterjet cutting machine. Manufacturers can rapidly prototype and validate concepts, provide localized and customized processing, use specialized materials, and create tools to maintain high-volume production lines.
Accelerating the Prototyping Process
Prototyping is an iterative process involving design, construction, testing, and evaluation. This is a crucial process for creating medical devices. When prototyping orthopedic implants, product design engineers need to create test samples and fully functional prototypes to ensure the implant's performance. Due to the lack of industrial manufacturing tools and machines required to cut certain metals, design engineers often need to outsource special custom parts. However, the outsourcing process can take several weeks, creating a lengthy bottleneck and negatively impacting the prototype production phase. Desktop waterjet cutting machines like WAZER allow engineers to create fully functional implant prototypes in-house. Testing can be performed faster than outsourcing, and necessary adjustments can be made simultaneously.
Waterjet cutting allows engineers to prototype and test with any material, including the materials used in the final implant, enabling engineers to perform more accurate evaluations with the same materials. Orthopedic implants made of titanium or stainless steel can be waterjet cut, but these materials cannot be cut using plasma or laser cutting machines, which could weaken the material or cutting edges.
Medical device companies need to produce parts and participate in clinical trials within short timeframes. Traditional manufacturing methods like sheet metal stamping are costly, have long lead times, and are very inefficient. Desktop CNC waterjet cutting machines provide medical product design engineers with affordable small-batch prototyping. Desktop CNC waterjet cutters can be placed almost anywhere in an engineering workshop. WAZER waterjet enables engineers to make adjustments and iterations based on prototype testing, thereby reducing costs and waiting times.
Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing for Prototyping
Modern prototyping requires both desktop subtractive and additive manufacturing equipment for the broadest internal prototyping capabilities. Desktop 3D printers use resin materials to produce parts, while compact waterjets like WAZER cut prototype parts from metals and specialized materials. With the ability to perform rapid, continuous iterations, medical device design engineers can develop at a lower cost, making changes early in the development process to reduce design risks.
Prototyping is an iterative process involving design, construction, testing, and evaluation. This is a crucial process for creating medical devices. When prototyping orthopedic implants, product design engineers need to create test samples and fully functional prototypes to ensure the implant's performance. Due to the lack of industrial manufacturing tools and machines required to cut certain metals, design engineers often need to outsource special custom parts. However, the outsourcing process can take several weeks, creating a lengthy bottleneck and negatively impacting the prototype production phase. Desktop waterjet cutting machines like WAZER allow engineers to create fully functional implant prototypes in-house. Testing can be performed faster than outsourcing, and necessary adjustments can be made simultaneously.
Waterjet cutting allows engineers to prototype and test with any material, including the materials used in the final implant, enabling engineers to perform more accurate evaluations with the same materials. Orthopedic implants made of titanium or stainless steel can be waterjet cut, but these materials cannot be cut using plasma or laser cutting machines, which could weaken the material or cutting edges.
Medical device companies need to produce parts and participate in clinical trials within short timeframes. Traditional manufacturing methods like sheet metal stamping are costly, have long lead times, and are very inefficient. Desktop CNC waterjet cutting machines provide medical product design engineers with affordable small-batch prototyping. Desktop CNC waterjet cutters can be placed almost anywhere in an engineering workshop. WAZER waterjet enables engineers to make adjustments and iterations based on prototype testing, thereby reducing costs and waiting times.
Additive and Subtractive Manufacturing for Prototyping
Modern prototyping requires both desktop subtractive and additive manufacturing equipment for the broadest internal prototyping capabilities. Desktop 3D printers use resin materials to produce parts, while compact waterjets like WAZER cut prototype parts from metals and specialized materials. With the ability to perform rapid, continuous iterations, medical device design engineers can develop at a lower cost, making changes early in the development process to reduce design risks.
Unique Materials for Specific Treatment Tools
Desktop 3D printers and waterjet cutters enable ambitious healthcare innovations while providing localized and customized treatments. Hospitals, clinics, and rehabilitation centers are using desktop equipment, with 99% of US hospitals currently equipped with desktop 3D printers. By integrating desktop 3D printers into hospitals and laboratories, technicians can easily operate software to produce:
．Anatomical models for pre-operative planning
．Surgical guides customized from body scans
．Parts designed to match body scans
．Dentures obtained directly from intraoral scans
．Custom surgical instruments tailored to the surgeon's specifications
As the procedures and technologies used in healthcare evolve and develop, so too must the equipment that delivers these treatments. Desktop 3D printers and waterjet cutters enable hospitals and laboratories to shorten the time traditionally required and create one-off parts, without needing a dedicated team to operate the equipment.
Special Materials for Desktop Equipment
The specialized materials used in medical devices today pose challenges to manufacturers, who need to find the right tools to process these materials. For biocompatible, sterilization-resistant, and X-ray opaque plastics such as PEEK (polyetheretherketone), PPSU (polyphenylsulfone), PSU (polysulfone), and POM (polyoxymethylene), equipment capable of processing these materials is often unavailable.
Today, desktop manufacturing machinery can overcome these difficulties. Desktop waterjet cutters are ideal for cutting special plastics and sheet metals with high strength-to-weight ratios, such as titanium, for orthotics and prosthetics, among others. Respiratory connectors and adapters require special plastics. Due to technical limitations, these materials are incompatible with desktop 3D printers.
Continuous Production Runs
High-volume manufacturing requires precision tools and fixtures to guide and control mass production. Whenever parts or machines change, tools need to be updated. Outsourcing tools can take weeks or months, adding time, expense, and risk of error. Without the right tools, production is forced to stop. For high-volume manufacturers, a week of downtime is a huge cost. Desktop waterjet cutters can manufacture tools and fixtures in-house, reducing manufacturing costs and downtime while accelerating time-to-market. Suppose a medical device manufacturer has molds for 60 industrial pieces of equipment that need replacing. A desktop waterjet cutter can produce new molds in-house faster than outsourcing.
The growing pressure of innovation and competition, coupled with high-volume production requirements, necessitates medical device manufacturers to innovate and prototype rapidly. Desktop manufacturing equipment enables companies to accelerate the design phase and reduce development risks, and manufacture medical devices in-house. These tools are significant drivers of medical device development and production because the equipment has a smaller footprint, is affordable, and technicians can quickly learn and operate it in-house. Affordable desktop waterjet cutters, along with continuously innovating 3D printers, are continually helping medical device manufacturers meet new future challenges.
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