Custom parts machining offers benefits for a wide range of industries. But for healthcare manufacturing, it’s brought medical devices to an entirely new level. Just like automotive and other types of manufacturing, medical devices, and parts can now be made quickly, more easily, and with a very high grade of accuracy like never before.
Healthcare manufacturing includes a wide variety of applications that improve the lives and health of patients worldwide. Without medical machining services, modern medicine would not have the advanced treatments it has today.
How Healthcare Manufacturing Benefits from Custom Parts Machining
Custom parts machining significantly improves medical devices through precision, customization, and material versatility. CNC machining enables the production of components with tolerances up to ±0.0005 inches, ensuring critical medical parts meet exact specifications. This high level of accuracy is essential for surgical instruments, implants, and diagnostic equipment where even minor deviations can impact patient safety and device effectiveness.
Customization is a key advantage of CNC machining in medical device manufacturing. It allows for:
- Personalized implants and prosthetics tailored to individual patient needs
- Rapid prototyping for iterative testing and development of new medical innovations
- Production of complex geometries and unique designs that may not be possible with other manufacturing methods
Material flexibility is another crucial benefit. CNC machining can work with a wide range of biocompatible materials, including:
- Titanium and stainless steel for orthopedic implants
- PEEK and PEI (Ultem) for sterilizable components
- Medical-grade alloys for specialized applications
This versatility ensures that each medical device can be manufactured using the most appropriate material for its specific function and requirements. CNC machining also offers:
- Consistency in production, reducing variability, and enhancing device reliability
- Faster turnaround times for small production runs or custom parts
- No minimum order requirements, ideal for specialized or single-use medical products
- Integration with CAD/CAM software for seamless design-to-production workflow
By leveraging these advantages, custom parts machining enables the creation of more precise, reliable, and innovative medical devices that can significantly improve patient outcomes and advance healthcare technology
Types of Medical Devices Needing Custom Parts Machining
Anything used for a medical application must have precisely machined parts. Custom parts machining is vital to creating medical devices that are standard in hospitals, clinics, doctors’ and dentists’ offices around the world, including:
- Surgical suite machines and tools, from handheld scalpels to robotic arms
- Radiology equipment
- Laboratory equipment
- Diagnostic equipment, such as X-ray machines, heart rate monitors, and MRI scanners
- Implantable medical devices, such as knee implants and hip replacements
- Prosthetics
- Orthopedic repair hardware such as rods, screws, and plates to repair or replace broken or damaged bones.
Prosthetics is one area that benefits greatly. Custom parts machining can create a prosthetic that fits the individual exactly, unlike mass-produced prosthetics.
Prototypes
Because of the incredible amount of design and testing that goes into healthcare manufacturing, prototypes, and repeated testing, rigorous testing is a requirement. Any deviation or error can cause problems for a patient and possibly endanger their life. There is no room for error here.
CNC Machining offers a fast, easy, cost-effective option for producing these prototypes. Doctors and engineers can refine and test the device to ensure it’s safe, does what’s needed, and complies with all regulatory requirements.
Prototyping also speeds up the testing phase so that medical devices can be brought to the market faster than before. This is great for companies seeking a competitive advantage and patients who need the device. Small batch prototyping means that manufacturers can save on the raw materials needed and minimize waste during development.
Additionally, the dental industry also relies on custom part machining for instruments as well as dental implants to replace missing teeth for patients. Implants require the most accurate precision to ensure a custom fit for each patient.
Brown Industries For Custom Part Machining for Healthcare Manufacturing
Whether you need help fabricating a single component, a subassembly, or manufacturing a complete product, Brown Industries offers contract manufacturing for whatever your company designs. Whatever you can design, Brown Industries can help you manufacture it faster and for less.
