Darren Vine, Business Development Director, Europe. XL Precision Technologies
More than ever, innovative medical device manufacturers need to work with versatile suppliers and build strategic relationships with fully-equipped “one stop shops”. The process of developing new products through multiple design iterations, and the turn-around to take these to market with increasing manufacturing volumes must be achieved in ever-shorter lead times.
Exacting requirements on accuracy, repeatability and verified quality mean that a range of process technologies need to be combined, with the requirement to invest in a range of complimentary technologies. Sub-contract manufacturing companies that have resisted change and find themselves to be viewed as rigid, will discover that growth is increasingly elusive as medical device technology companies streamline their purchasing base and reduce supply chains.
XL Precision Technologies (XL-PT), with an already-established global reputation for conventional machining and wire-EDM, has excelled with its laser micro-welding, laser cutting and laser etching capabilities. It has always had an eye on emerging technologies and never shied away from new opportunities to complement existing capabilities with state-of-the-art machinery once the business case is clear.
Laser cutting, like the above example, allows Hypo tube to have flexibility fine-tuned
Predicting the future requirements in terms of technology is vital as there is always a short delay between identifying new process capabilities and bringing them on-stream. Making sound investment decisions in new capital equipment is a way to ensure the capacity and technology mix necessary to respond to the requirements of global med tech customers.
Already moving from a component supplier to include sub-assembly, such as joining of plastic to metal parts by adhesive bonding, a clean room was built on-site for assembly of hypo-tube delivery systems and similar products.
Adding Additive Manufacturing – enhancing the micro-machining offering
Most recently, the company has added an advanced Additive Manufacturing system to the portfolio of process technologies available in-house. The system, installed in 2017, is capable of building 3D parts up to 100 x 100 x 100 mm in a range of metals including stainless steel 17-PH and Cobalt Chrome using a process known as Direct Metal Printing (DMP). The machine allows innovative designs and pre-production prototypes to be manufactured within 24 hours from CAD to finished part, to accelerate the product development cycle. Parts can be built with geometries not possible with conventional machining, and the capability exceeds that of Metal Injection Moulding in terms of turn-around time and enables part count reduction, since the process step of joining multiple parts can often be removed by making a single 3D printed component in one go.
The decision to invest in this capability was driven by the emphasis XL-PT puts on working hand in hand with designers and manufacturing engineers at med tech companies – whether they are new start-ups without the dedicated staff to work out the best methods to take an innovative design through to volume manufacturing, or large multi-nationals wishing to jump-start their progress in getting parts approved for production with an economic.
XL-PT enhances this capability further by combining the technology with laser cutting, welding and EDM processes to provide unique and versatile solutions.
In the picture below, you can see that parts coming from the machine need only minor finishing to clean up and polish before they are ready for use as prototype parts for evaluation of ergonomics, function or life-testing.
3D printed jaws in 17-4PH stainless steel – made in 24 hours
Keeping Ahead of the Game
Regular investment in capital equipment keeps companies like XL Precision Technologies ahead of the game in medical device manufacturing. XL PT has been equipped with lasers for welding, cutting and etching since 2005, now having a total of 12 laser systems on site and producing parts for sub-assemblies which often require a combination of conventional and non-conventional machining.
Several suppliers can offer laser cutting or laser welding, but very few can offer the complete range of processes including EDM, multi-axis machining, chemical etching and precision assembly. It is this rare combination of process skills which allows both the manufacture of single components and sub-assemblies in the medical device industry.
Drug delivery filter manufactured at XL-PT featuring off-axis laser cutting & laser welding
The component above is a drug delivery filter manufactured from stainless steel tube. The first operation involves laser drilling of the holes which are drilled off-axis (in fact the laser beam, which is as small as 15 microns, cuts out each hole precisely in a fraction of a second). The tube is then cut to length using the laser cutting system which includes automatic tube loading to allow highly efficient processing of a large volume of parts. After removing from the machine and cleaning, the end cap – which is produced by flat-bed laser machining on a different system – is then fitted for final assembly by laser welding the assembly in a manually loaded CNC laser welding machine. Parts like this can also be produced using EDM or additive manufacturing if tolerances and production times are suitable – or if it assists the prototyping process.
XL-PT can supply any quantity from 500 to 2,500,000 parts per annum, and currently consumes between 600 and 700 km of tube per year in sizes from 0.2mm to 15 mm diameter.
www.xl-pt.com
Founded in 1998, Stockton-on-Tees based XL Precision Technologies, celebrates 20 years of trading this year. With a turnover in excess of £6 million and over 60 employees, XL-PT is expanding rapidly through serving an impressive number of clients in Europe and USA.