Zone: Medical Machining

Successfully Feeding The Medical Market

This medical shop has adopted five-axis, bar-fed machining technology to adapt to compressed delivery schedules and increasingly complex part geometries.

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Economies Of Scale

Medical implant work is not just small in terms of workpiece sizes. Lot sizes and lead times can also be small when the product is still under development. To compete for implant work, this shop aims to offer cost savings in the face of all of this smallness.

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Switching Material Improves Productivity, Bar None
2/1/2010 Production Machining: Serving the exacting and specialized requirements of the medical implant industry requires manufacturers to not only use the most precise, state-of-the-art metalworking equipment, but also high quality raw materials, including precision ground bar capable of offering tight dimensional tolerances and exceptional diameter uniformity.Hammill Medical division of Hammill Manufacturing Co., Maumee, Ohio, a contract implant producer that specializes in high precision products such as bone screws, spinal implants, femoral knee joints and fixation systems, began using titanium Ultrabar small diameter “extra-precision” ground titanium bar on its CNC Swiss-type screw machines a little more than a year ago.
It Takes Firm Resolution To Master The Micro
1/18/2010 Modern Machine Shop: This shop’s experience of successfully machining a micro aneurysm clip in silicon nitride ceramic points out the need to have CAD, CAM and CNC capability at high resolution—plus the commitment to pull it all together.
Qualifying for Medical Work: Advice from a da Vinci Shop
12/28/2009 Production Machining: Swiss shop with heavy medical experience shares how to get and keep medical customers.
Micro-Drilling Calls for Considerations
11/18/2009 Production Machining: “Tiny” usually comes to mind when the term “micro” is used. So it is easy to assume that micromachining equates to very small parts found in the medical and electronics manufacturing industries.
See The Tool's Value Instead Of Its Cost
6/2/2009 Modern Machine Shop: This company is embracing high-performance tooling on its turning centers. The "sticker shock" is no reason not to do this. In one case, though, the shop found a way to limit the cost of the tool and increase productivity at the same time.

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Overview Of:
Medical Machining

Medical Machining refers to all of the CNC machining related to surgical implants, orthotic devices and medical instruments. Various medical parts involve various challenges, but certain machining challenges in particular are common among medical parts. They include: ■ Small-scale machining or micromachining, because implanted devices often consist of very tiny components ■ Machining titanium, a material often used in medical devices because of its non-reactivity with the body ■ Machining plastics, because certain plastics also have this advantage ■ Custom machining, because some medical components can only be machined to specifications tailored to a particular patient’s body ■ Efficient small-batch machining, because new medical devices are developed quickly and refined through many iterations, making it necessary for machine shops to responsively provide prototype parts Medical Machining tends to be almost exclusively outsourced machining, with very little machining ever done by the OEM developing and marketing the medical device or product. This means that one additional challenge for shops that wish to participate in this market is to build, advance and maintain relationships with medical-industry customers in need of machining work.