|
|
MDS Project Case Studies
(Highlights from twenty-five years of success!)
Case Study 5: Medical Device Upgrade
MDS is an approved supplier to a small Mid-West U.S. medical device manufacturer. This customer had
manufactured a patented device for several years. The device had not been upgraded since its initial
development. The product contained an outdated material. Product users were becoming reluctant
to purchase the product because of the outdated material. A single physical property of the outdated
material was the prime reason that the product design functioned. Our customer has an onsite engineering
staff. Their engineering staff was constrained in resources and had a priority to support daily
manufacturing which left little time to accomplish a product upgrade. Over the course of months, little
progress on the project had been achieved.
MDS's customer contracted with MDS to provide technical resources to review the patent for
design variants, assess the physics of the design, obtain and review the current material properties,
and recommend alternate designs and materials. MDS personnel would function as a product upgrade addition
to their engineering team. Their in-house project leader remained as project leader. MDS provided
three project support people. The project leader provided MDS personnel with project history,
product information, patents, existing component and material samples, and new concept material
samples they had tried.
Within two weeks of project initiation, MDS personnel had completed the design review, patent assessment,
applicable configuration physics, and material property review of the existing product. At that time,
MDS was able to suggest alternative configurations. MDS personnel then designed, acquired the materials,
and constructed a custom test apparatus to determine the best material combinations for variant new designs
of the product. The test apparatus was validated against known standards. MDS then sourced new potential
product materials. Both the new materials and existing product materials supplied by the project leader
were compared on the test apparatus.
The results of these efforts were provided to the project leader in a seamless and nearly daily manner.
MDS personnel completed all project activities within six weeks. The customer's in-house engineering staff processed the design changes through their system. The entire project was completed with only a few local auto travel miles to source materials. MDS's customer reported that MDS's work methods saved them time, capital, and moved this important project forward.
The upgraded product is now our customer's source of revenue.
|
|
