Martech saves time going to medical marketplace

Timelines and deadlines are essential when trying to launch a new product or keep a product moving in the marketplace. This is especially true in the competitive, highly evolving medical products arena.

Dave Texter, tool shop manager of Martech Medical Products in Harleysville, Pennsylvania, says the pressure of solely serving an internal customer is demanding but very rewarding. “When I started here three years ago, my job was to build a responsive shop. The small manual shop that existed had been doing mold maintenance and bailouts, but had not really been doing any finished cavities. The shop just did not have the machining capability.

“Most of that complex work was going outside, and some still does. But using external resources exclusively gets expensive, especially when time is of the essence. So we added more updated equipment and began to control turnaround time and to generate more ability to assist in controlling internal product timelines.

“We manufacture tooling to produce and support our product, which is primarily catheters and a number of medical product applications,” says Texter. “And being able to go quickly from the mold shop to our production facility due to machines like the Makino Edge2S, helps us maintain our market position.

“Likewise, the detail and intricacy of the Edge2S Ram EDM process allows us to meet the tight tolerance demands for our intricate products. It was one of my first machine tool purchase choices when we began building this new, responsive internal shop. And it has proven to be the best.”

Focusing on Service [back to top]
Founded in 1974, Martech began doing small extrusions and moldings, primarily supplying extruded coverings and tubing for automotive wiring harnesses.

While working in the family tubing business, David Markel was inspired to create and head the biomedical tubing division of the company, which he later purchased and developed into Martech. The company built on its heritage to focus on fabricating tubing, molded components, subassemblies and completed devices using medical grade silicones.

Mahase Nardeo, director of engineering for Martech, says having an internal mold shop is the best thing that happened to his operation. “Having our own internal mold and tool shop is a huge cost and time advantage for Martech. We can now be more responsive in our R&D and our service to the health care needs of the customers and people we serve.

“Everything we do in our shop supports the design and production of catheters for our large dialysis and drug-infusion medical device markets. Some of our products are even used for breaking up clots and controlling heart rates. We know we help save lives, which we take very seriously and are proud of accomplishing.

“These are injection-molded medical parts,” says Nardeo. “We do extrusions, tip forming, side hole positioning, pad printing, and insert molding of multi-lumen (multi-cavity) tubing with molded components and connectors. All are very close tolerance items to serve needs in such medical fields as hemodialysis, intervention radiology, urology, cardiac pacing, cardiac surgery, oncology, infusion technology and intensive care.

“Everything we do in our shop is tooling for our products. We like having a closed-loop manufacturing system, where we bring in raw plastic, compound it and manufacture extruded tubing and injection molded components all in-house. The extrusion and molding departments are the heart of our operation, and we now make all of the tooling that supports it.”

Burning Results [back to top]
The Makino Edge2S can handle the most difficult cores and cavities Martech produces, according to Texter. “The most critical feature we have to burn is lure tapers, which is an ISO standard taper for two connectors to go together and seal off. We need to hold +/-0.0003-inch tolerances on the diameter, and with the Edge2S it comes out pretty well.

“A major benefit of the Makino is the fine finish. I knew we wanted to stay away from timely bench polishing if we could. The superior, matte finish requires no polishing and also makes our pad printing on the part look much nicer.

“All of our insert molds have tubes coming into the cavity that have to be shut off all around, with very tight tolerances,” says Texter. “Many of these tubes are multi-lumen, all of which need molding rods inside them to properly shut off without pinching the tubes. We have even done steel-to-steel burns to get ultra-precision in complicated shutoff shapes. The Edge2S easily handled that level of work beautifully.

“We often make electrodes during the day, set the Edge2S up and then run it unattended at night with a 24-station tool changer. You can do up to four or five cavity burns with a three-dimensional reduction on the orbit for the complex cavity shapes.

“A rotating needle prototype part was recently burned on the Edge2S,” says Texter. “As you advance the needle, it has to rotate one turn in one inch. So we burned the helix part of the track that the drive mechanism rides on as it rotates. We burned it with the C-axis and the Z-axis in order to get the complex bottom stop.

“The rotating needle prototype is a core sample device to be used as a less intrusive method to sample the pancreas. It will be inserted endoscopically and advance while it cores, retracts and keeps a sample.”

Operational Satisfaction [back to top]
Texter notes there are several features on the Edge2S that make it ideal for Martech Medical. “The drop tank is great—very handy and very convenient. The controller, I fell in love with the first time I used it. It is user-friendly and nicely laid out. Initially, we liked the programming of a competitive machine. But we quickly discovered the superiority of the Makino finish quality, and that made all the difference.

“The training and assistance provided by Makino and its distributor, Automation Solutions, Inc., allowed us to learn how to break away from older methods and determinations. I personally ran the Edge2S for the first month or two, getting it set up and testing the work capability. Everything I did came out great, including the burning of an unusual mold with weird-shaped shutoffs with tight tolerances. It knocked out 200 hours worth of operational time in the first month we had it.”

The biggest asset of the Edge2S is that it allows Martech to meet internal timelines necessary to keep work in-house. “We don’t have to go to outside shops and ‘get in line,’” says Texter. “When we are developing a new product, especially the extrusion mold of multi-lumen tubing, we often have to go through several renditions of the die and mandrel in order to get the tubing to Martech standards. Each effort is like sighting a rifle, and dialing it in until you hit the target.

“In the past it would often require two to three weeks for each rendition of tooling when using outside shops. And when you have three or four renditions to work through, it could easily take eight to 12 weeks to get an extrusion line going.

“With the Makino Edge2S, we can now make the necessary tooling and even test it during the same week,” says Texter. “This now dramatically reduces the time for new renditions of tooling. Compressing the process not only saves us time, but a great deal of hidden costs and out-of-pocket expenses.”

This process allows Martech’s R&D efforts to reach out more quickly to the marketplace. “The very first mold we produced on the Edge2S was a huge success,” says Texter. “We came through and built a whole catheter mold in six weeks, which normally would have taken 12 to 16 weeks. It is a quickly changing market, and if you spend a lot of effort to develop a product and get there too late, the entire team’s effort could be for nothing.

“The Edge2S seems to have been the right choice for us. We are doing some beta testing on the EDCam Professional™ software for offline programming. From what I can see, it looks like a very positive asset. For multiple cavities and to conduct multiple burn depths, it looks like good software in order to reduce the potential for human error in programming.”

Texter says the investment in the internal mold shop has proven so successful for Martech, the company plans to expand in order to do more and even larger mold work. “We are looking to build up to a half-dozen major molds a year. With the success we have had with Makino, I see no need to make any change from our focus on utilizing Makino.

“We need machinery which will allow us more capacity, larger EDM tables and higher rotating spindle speeds. We would like to get a Makino high-speed mill to go with the Edge2S, which would give us an awesome combination. Makino is the choice for our growth—and our internal health.”

For additional information on Martech Medical Products, contact Mahase Nardeo at mnardeo@martechmedical.com. Or, for more information on its success with Makino Ram EDM process solutions, contact Dave Texter at dtexter@martechmedical.com. Both can be reached at 1500 Delp Drive, Harleysville, Pennsylvania, 19438;
phone: 215-256-8833,
fax: 215-256-8837,
Web: www.martechmedical.com

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