Case Study
Industry: Medical
This case study details the partnership built between Seaway Plastics and a unique healthcare company that demanded an experienced ISO 13485-certified medical injection molding company. This healthcare company has provided care for billions of people since its inception over 100 years ago and with over 50,000 employees aiding in their mission to improve healthcare, its size and integrity continue to establish itself in the world at large. The company looks to continue to develop solutions to increase the level of care people experience. So when certain challenges arose regarding the cost and efficiency of making their parts through injection molding, this healthcare company sought a different solution and reached out to the knowledgeable team at Seaway Plastics for guidance.
Our Objective
This healthcare company relied on costly and relatively slow CNC machining for parts used in a specific device for manufacturing coronavirus vaccines in early 2020. However, with the sudden exponential increase in demand, the company needed a more efficient alternative to scale production or risk losing valuable time and money. This company had experience working with Seaway Plastics through a secondary network of subcontractors and decided to reach out for more information on what benefits came with an ISO-certified medical injection molding company.
With this company’s production team actively seeking to quickly resolve this production problem, Seaway’s fast turnaround medical plastic injection molding services stood out to them as a more cost-effective and scalable solution. As CNC machining remains an adequate solution for parts up to a mid-volume level, Seaway’s abilities would accommodate this healthcare company’s demand for high-volume production while maintaining or exceeding the levels of precision, repeatability, and quality of the previous provider but at a reduced cost.
The total conversion process from CNC machining to DFM plastic medical injection molding provided the ideal solution to this particular issue. Through intense collaboration, Seaway Plastics and this healthcare company devised a plan to create 11 different molds that would yield the necessary parts in a reduced lead time when compared to the traditional CNC machining method previously used. For experts to CNC machine these parts, it would average around 5 to 6 weeks lead time for product completion by other manufacturers. Additionally, Seaway Plastics was able to determine the ideal resins for the project as PP-polypropylene, Nylon, and PEEK while also designing and manufacturing tooling for the process completely in-house.
The Results
After devising the ideal resins, molding technique, and designing the tooling, the healthcare company received product samples only three weeks after SPE’s in-house tooling experts completed the molds. The average expected turnaround time for these types of parts ranges between 6 to 10 weeks and hamper innovation. Also, they completed their project before their anticipated deadline with project completion 10 weeks after the initial project started. For a demanding project that involved 58 different molds produced with the desired tolerances, this customer could have expected to wait nearly six months by working with other manufacturers and not an ISO-certified medical injection molding company like Seaway Plastics. As all of these individual parts fit together into a larger assembly, each needed to hold the intended tolerances, specifications, and necessary performance attributes provided by the specific resins.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this healthcare company’s DFM plans along with Seaway’s capabilities as an ISO-certified medical injection molding company accelerated vaccine distribution and played a tremendous role in slowing the spread and mortality of the virus. The plastic injection molding process proved itself as the best alternative meeting both cost and time constraints for this healthcare company’s high volume plastic injection molding needs. This exceptional turnaround time, cost-savings, and detailed-orientated approach led to the customer returning to Seaway Plastics on future projects requiring medical injection molding and continuing to partner on new projects for the healthcare industry.
