Robots Can Produce Medical Parts Too

In com­par­i­son to the auto­mo­tive, aero­space, and elec­tron­ics indus­tries, the med­ical-man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­try has not tak­en advan­tage of robot­ic automa­tion tech­nolo­gies at a high rate in the past. How­ev­er, decreas­ing costs and recent advance­ments in robot­ics are encour­ag­ing the med­ical device sec­tor to use auto­mat­ed man­u­fac­tur­ing in many med­ical device oper­a­tions like assem­bly, dis­pens­ing, inspec­tion, machine tend­ing, mate­r­i­al han­dling, and pack­ag­ing.

The ease in which robots can now be pro­grammed since mod­ern con­trollers are PC-based is a big fac­tor in increas­ing automa­tion. Fur­ther, design­ers can sim­u­late robot­ic lines before they per­form their task in real life, reduc­ing risks and low­er­ing costs. Cur­rent sys­tems can also con­form to med­ical require­ments for track­ing software. 

Robots can per­form accu­rate and pre­cise move­ments need­ed for small or com­plex parts. They can assem­ble, inspect, trans­fer, and pack­age med­ical parts like stents, shunts, and catheters. Robots ensure reli­a­bil­i­ty and repeata­bil­i­ty, which val­i­dates many people’s fears about a non-human han­dling their med­ical care. The cost of human labor is also decreased. One oper­a­tion uses cam­eras to locate and pick stent wires. The cam­eras locat­ed the tips of the wires, often bent, and the robots knew exact­ly where to pick them up. Twen­ty-two peo­ple were used for this process pre­vi­ous­ly, and with the aid of robots, only three peo­ple are now necessary.

Many med­ical devices require doc­u­ment-process con­trol. This is sim­pli­fied with automa­tion since robots use real time to cap­ture part dimen­sions. Hard­ware or soft­ware can then be used to inter­pret the data.

ESS Tech­nolo­gies spe­cial­izes in pack­ag­ing med­ical devices. A 3D mod­el is import­ed into Fanuc’s RoboGu­ide soft­ware, as well as oth­er draw­ings and infor­ma­tion from sup­pli­ers. Next, frames tell the robot its loca­tion and the pack­ag­ing equipment’s loca­tion. Then, pro­gram­ming is as sim­ple as using a teach­ing pen­dant to show the robot where to go to per­form the pack­ag­ing task. 

In one ESS Tech­nolo­gies oper­a­tion, robots assem­bled and pack­aged a med­ical device, placed it on a blis­ter card, loaded mul­ti­ple cards into a car­ton, then into a case, and final­ly onto a pal­let. The robots picked a part from a con­vey­or aid­ed by end-of-arm tool­ing with a forced sen­sor allow­ing the robot to real­ize when it has prop­er­ly grasped the prod­uct. Sev­en robots were used in the oper­a­tion, main­ly LR-Mate 6‑axis models.

Fanuc’s robots are equipped with vision soft­ware that helps the robot locate parts in ran­dom­ly ori­ent­ed piles in trays or con­vey­ors. 2D Vision soft­ware employs one cam­era, and 3D Vision adds cam­eras as need­ed. The M‑410iB mod­el com­bined with ESS Tech­nolo­gies equip­ment is able to pack phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal bot­tles and pouch­es into car­tons. The LR Mate 00iC loads syringes into trays. The M‑1iA Robot is often used in med­ical device assem­bly because it can han­dle dif­fi­cult parts with repeatability.

Den­so Robot­ics is a sup­pli­er of med­ical device-com­pat­i­ble robots ide­al for assem­bling small, dif­fi­cult-to-han­dle parts. They have a wide range of work­spaces, so the oper­a­tor can tai­lor the robot to his needs.

Robots​.com car­ries a wide vari­ety of indus­tri­al robots that can be used to pro­duce med­ical parts. Whether it’s weld­ing, paint­ing or even mold­ing, Robots​.com rep­re­sen­ta­tives can help you decide which med­ical robot would be the right choice for the most effi­cient part build­ing. Con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.