How Is CNC Machining Changing The Medical Industry?
Patient healthcare and treatment options are being revolutionised by advances in medical engineering, as new technologies emerge. More sophisticated medical devices deliver better performance, more accurate customisation options, and enhanced safety, helping to shape improved patient outcomes.
Irrespective of their design and application, all medical devices must be:
- Safe for patient use: raw materials and engineering techniques must not compromise patient health and wellbeing.
- Reliable, with close tolerances to consistently deliver high levels of performance.
- Customised to patients’ individual needs and adapted closely to the human anatomy.
- Prototyped and rigorously tested to ensure optimum performance and safety.
The Benefits Of CNC Machining For The Medical Industry
Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machining is the ideal solution to help your business to meet these criteria when manufacturing medical devices. If you’re planning to subcontract CNC machining to an expert, what impact can you expect your decision to have on the quality and accuracy of your completed medical devices?
Compliance With Regulatory Standards
In healthcare, even minor mistakes can cause severe consequences for patients, so the machining of medical components and devices must achieve exacting tolerances and precise measurements. Medical devices must comply with a range of quality assurance standards, including ISO 9001-2015: CNC machining can help your products to be compliant, giving you and end-users an assurance of safety.
Excellent Repeatability And Tolerance
Once the design for a component is created in the CAD software, the CNC mill or lathe will duplicate the part in any required volume, with excellent levels of repeatability and the most minimal variation in tolerance – typically less than five microns. To achieve this level of accuracy through manual machining, the skills of a master machinist would be necessary under controlled conditions and would be significantly more time-consuming and expensive.
More Versatile Designs
CNC machining offers greater flexibility in terms of the raw material being work on, the only requirement being that it can withstand the force of the tools. Minor adjustments to machines can be made to accommodate the properties of different materials, so designers of medical devices have more choice when selecting the material that is most suited to the application and the needs of the end user, rather than being constrained in their decision making.
Making The Impossible Possible
The advent of sophisticated design software, digital motors, and specialist cutting tools have stimulated changes in the medical device industry and helped to create a new generation of products that will improve patient outcomes and enhance daily living. A higher degree of perfection is now a realistic possibility, so designers of medical devices no longer need to wonder whether their plans are feasible.
Redline CNC: Your First Choice For 5-axis CNC Machining
At Redline CNC, we will be delighted to provide you with a free, no-obligation quotation for your next project, so please call us on +44 1293 820090.
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