【Pressure Forming】How Oertli, a Medical Device Company, Prototyped Medical Packaging in 24 Hours Using Pressure Forming
In recent years, hardware manufacturers have discovered for the first time that outsourcing and adhering to rigid prototyping processes can bring both positive and negative consequences. As a result, many manufacturers have turned to desktop manufacturing to regain control over critical part designs that require maximum flexibility.
Malte Heuer is a Development Engineer and Product Manager at Oertli Instrumente AG. Headquartered in St. Gallen Rhine Valley, the company specializes in producing high-quality surgical instruments and medical devices for ophthalmic surgery, developing and manufacturing its products exclusively in the region to ensure Swiss quality, precision, and reliability.
Malte introduced the Mayku Multiplier and its pressure forming technology to the R&D and engineering departments. By adopting desktop pressure forming technology, Oertli demonstrated how in-house agile prototyping can significantly improve efficiency and output quality.
(Related article: 【Thermoforming Applications】Vacuum Forming vs. Pressure Forming: What's the Difference? Find Out Now!)
CathaRhex 3 (Source: Oertli)
Oertli's R&D facility boasts a wide range of manufacturing technologies, including resin 3D printing, FDM 3D printing, and other prototyping equipment. Utilizing these expanding technologies, the company gains a competitive advantage by designing, testing, and iterating at an accelerated pace every day.
Desktop 3D printing equipment in Oertli's R&D facility (Source: Oertli)
From Frustration to Innovation
Despite Oertli's significant investments in sustainability, innovation, and equipment improvements, hardware development still faced some challenges. Until recently, medical device packaging was one such challenge.
Medical packaging prototypes made with the Mayku Multiplier pressure former (Source: Oertli)
Internally at Oertli, the usual packaging prototyping process was extremely slow, requiring outsourcing the prototyping to the final thermoformed packaging supplier. Each design iteration round took 3 weeks, and each packaging component required 2-6 design rounds.
The R&D team would design the packaging and use FDM 3D printing technology to produce limited visual prototypes. This prototype was not functional because the packaging's recesses, which hold the components, were not flexible enough for reduced wall thickness, and no 3D printing technology could print a functional prototype.
Once approved by the product management team, the design would be sent to the packaging supplier, who would produce a prototype within approximately three weeks. The functional prototype would then be shipped back for customer testing and feedback collection. This process would be repeated until the perfect design was found.
Bringing Smart Methods to Manufacturing
This design iteration process was inefficient, so when Malte was tasked with medical packaging prototyping, he put his SCRUM Master skills to use, looking for a technology that could make prototyping faster. Searching Google for desktop yet powerful thermoforming machines, he discovered the Multiplier and quickly saw its potential within Oertli and purchased it.
Mayku Multiplier in Oertli's R&D facility (Source: Oertli)
Malte was able to seamlessly integrate the Multiplier into the existing prototyping workflow, retaining the already efficient key stages and optimizing the problematic ones. He still uses Solidworks to design packaging prototypes. However, instead of using 3D printed visual prototypes for submission to the product management team and outsourcing to packaging suppliers, he uses thermoforming molds designed with 3D printing (related tutorial: 【Pressure Forming】12 Thermoforming Design Principles Beginners Must Know). He then uses the Multiplier to create 3-10 high-fidelity prototypes for submission to the team and testers. All of this can be done within one day.
"If product management suggested a small change during a meeting, it used to take three weeks to implement and schedule an update meeting. Now, changes can be made within a day, and a meeting can be scheduled for the next day, with everyone remembering the details of yesterday's meeting." - Malte Heuer - Development Engineer and Product Manager at Oertli Instrumente AG
Due to the requirement for high-fidelity prototypes, Malte decided to use a pressure forming machine like the Mayku Multiplier. Evaluating the design required a tolerance of +-0.1 mm, which other technologies like vacuum forming could not achieve.
Return on Investment for In-house Pressure Forming
Bringing high-fidelity prototyping in-house has allowed Oertli to remain innovative and agile. They can respond to engineering requirements and team feedback almost immediately, without any of the waste or inefficiencies typically faced by hardware manufacturers during prototyping.
"The fast cycle time that began with software has now extended throughout the mechanical department." - Malte Heuer - Development Engineer and Product Manager at Oertli Instrumente AG
By using the Multiplier, Oertli reduced its design iteration cycle from three weeks to one day. They also reduced the cost of their prototyping cycle by over 90%, while still producing high-fidelity prototypes. They can now produce prototypes in-house, allowing for complete control over the entire process.
Integrating Multiplier into existing workflows became very simple, and Malte also introduced this technology to other teams. He realized that the high quality and fast production offered by the technology would have a positive impact on the entire company.
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