Rapid design and simulation of an innovative go-to-market device
Nissha Medical Technologies’ talented design team is experienced at solving the most challenging projects. NMT’s unified design approach is built upon core principles of usability, risk mitigation, and quality. The design process utilizes multi-disciplinary resources from Design Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Regulatory and Supply Chain.
At every step of the design process, collaborative customer interaction and feedback guides the project from early brainstorming to design freeze.
CUSTOMER SITUATION
A startup medical device company saw an opportunity in the market and came to NMT with a design challenge. The company wanted to develop a low-cost linear bowel stapler to compete with a higher-cost stapler offered by one of the world’s largest medical device companies.
In bowel stapling, the proper alignment of the staple is the most important characteristic; misalignment causing complications including leakage from the staple lines, fistula formations, and bleeding. Though rare, there have been reports of stapler error in laparoscopic procedures resulting in a conversion to an open procedure.
NMT PROCESS
The typical market approach would be for the engineers on the project to form an agreed upon starting point and “make and test” until the desired result is achieved. The problem: difficult to make multiple tests and very costly. This specific product also proved to require complex plastic and metal parts with intricate geometry in the staple formation.
NMT methodically focused on the most critical aspects of the design up front, getting maximum benefit from the organization’s tools before adding complexity and before spending time and money on “make and test.” Project managers proposed doing simulation testing in a virtual environment versus physical. Virtual simulation allowed NMT to find where staples malformed and identify sensitivity/boundary lines that would cause misalignments. Securing this level of information early in the design process allowed the final design to be formed with less cost and in far less time than originally anticipated.
SUMMARY
Success in the highly competitive medical device marketplace requires rapid innovation and fast, flexible design and development. Nissha Medical Technologies combines experienced engineers, a highly collaborative culture, and a proven process for concept generation and feasibility prototyping. This process embeds multiple tools for virtual prototyping and simulation.
As this case study illustrates, the results of NMT’s process yields accelerated design and development timelines, reduced risk, optimization of OEM’s financial resources and innovative new products that meet customers’ technical and business requirements, enabling customers to get to market faster with innovative products and leading to commercial success.
To learn more about the in-depth process NMT took, download the White Paper here.