The molded plastic market is projected to reach new highs as the medical and healthcare systems grow.
By 2026 the global micro injection molded plastic market is projected to reach US $1.7M, at a CAGR of 11.2% from 2021. This boost is largely attributed to activities and developments in the medical, health care, and wellbeing sectors.
Aside from the pandemic, growth is being driven by advances in the home healthcare sector and an aging population. UK medical specialist at Sumitomo (SHI) Demag, Sam Carr, explores how the company’s smaller tonnage IntElect machine is responding to evolving production requirements.
Manufacturing small, high-precision thermoplastic components with micron tolerances is difficult because components can be as small as a single grain of granulate. The limit of what can be molded can be as light as 0.0003g, with walls as thin as 0.0004" and dimensional tolerances to ±0.0005".
Typical items being micro molded using this technique can comprise a wide range of surgical, endoscopic, point of care testing, diabetes management, drug delivery, and DNA research and sequencing devices. The expanding market includes catheter components, hearing aids, dental prosthetics, microfluidics, vials, caps, specimen cups, vacuum blood and serum collection tubes, syringes, and IV parts. These applications all have diminutive size and the need for total accuracy and zero defects during the molding process.
The process of micro injection molding isn’t dissimilar to creating larger parts. Shot-to-shot precision is where the main difference lies. If more material is allowed under the check valve on a 10g part, it isn’t a huge issue. However, if the part weight is 0.1g, it becomes a problem.
Historically, micro injection molders would have invested in specialist plunger systems or hydraulic machines. The latter meant dealing with variations in oil temperature and compressibility. These drawbacks are removed with the new generation of all-electric machines. Offering control not previously attainable, the IntElect delivers maximum precision whilst offering full mold safety, ensuring the sensitive cores and mold details aren’t damaged.
The Männer pipette exhibit which the SHI medical team collaborated on last year is testament to the level of control that can be accomplished with the latest generation of all-electric molding machines. Equipped with dynamic drive motors, the ready-to-go cleanroom IntElect S 130T molding cell is one of the few compact all-electric machines on the market with the mold space to accommodate a 64-cavity cluster tool and demolding robotics.
As well as the mid-size range, the IntElect thrives in the smaller tonnage, with the ability to supply screw sizes as small as 14mm on the 50T and 75T machines. This combination enables users to accomplish small shot weights with fine control required with micro molded components. For increased production capacity, some molders opt for a larger screw and barrel to allow them to mold larger parts, demonstrating the flexibility the IntElect offers without compromising the precision to the application.
Discover the value of hybrid manufacturing.
Hybrid manufacturing describes the combined use of additive and subtractive manufacturing processes to produce end use components. This emerging technology has the potential to displace conventional manufacturing approaches and enable advances in product sustainability, performance, and lead time. However, uptake of the technology has been relatively limited due to its high barriers of entry; the inaccessibility of machines and software and the knowledge required to be successful with the technology, to name a few. As industry rapidly develops, novel solutions to these challenges are prevailing. This talk showcases a recent collaboration between Autodesk and Phillips Corp. to develop a combination of accessible hardware and software solutions for hybrid manufacturing. Using the Haas machine platform, directed energy deposition technology from Meltio and integrated CAD-CAM with Autodesk Fusion 360, this collaboration demonstrates how hybrid technology is ready for the machine shop.
Meet your presenter Brian Kristaponis joined the Phillips team in 2016 as an applications engineer for the federal division and, shortly after became applications manager. Kristaponis and his team supported the U.S. Government with all things Haas and additive. His latest venture combined CNC machining and metal 3D printing into one system, bringing the best value additive hybrid machines to market! Hybrid gives customers the benefits of both technologies.
Robert Bowerman is a technical consultant at Autodesk, based in the Fusion360 product team, working in the field of AM. His work includes collaborative work with industrial partners and internal R&D to create the future workflows for AM processes, with a focus on directed energy deposition and powder bed fusion. Bowerman’s motivation is to drive innovation within AM to achieve scale and adoption throughout the supply chain.
About the company For more than 50 years, federal government, industry, and education leaders have trusted the people at Phillips Corporation to solve their greatest manufacturing challenges. With a worldwide presence and partnerships with technology leaders like Haas Automation and EOS, our goal is to create value for the manufacturing community by unlocking solutions to propel manufacturing capabilities, profitability, and productivity. Phillips is a global manufacturing solutions company that started as a machine tool distributor. We’ve most recently established a Public-Private Partnership agreement to work with the U.S. Department of Defense to educate, inspire, and redefine the capabilities of additive manufacturing.
Beck Automation finds an increased demand for in-mold-labeling shortly after entering the medical manufacturing field.
Beck Automation AG officially entered the international medical market with their focus on automation solutions for producers of medical consumables manufactured by injection molding. After three months, the first positive developments can be summarized.
"At the beginning, we assumed that our market entry would be positively evaluated by medical companies. However, we did not expect so much positive feedback and requests," says Ralf Ziemer, sales manager medical at Beck Automation.
It wasn’t only the reactions to the market entry in the social networks that were positive, but also the requests received in the following period. Beck Automation assumed there would be less demand for in-mold-labelling (IML) applications, and the company initially concentrated on applications in the area of high-speed take out and downstream. However, IML solutions have been in high demand until now, which is why Beck Automation adapted its strategy.
"We didn't necessarily want to push IML in the medical sector, but about 50% of all requests have to do with IML. Some of these are specific, high-precision applications. For example, we are currently working on a solution to insert an RFID label into components that will later be used with pre-filled syringes. We received the request for this future-oriented technology because we are the only automation company that can offer such precise solutions," Ziemer says.
Other promising projects were also generated.
"We convince our business partners with our engineering and our understanding of the structural design of a medical system. As soon as we address this topic and show examples of what we understand by Swiss engineering, we call the customers attention. As a result, we receive mostly relate to functional and high-precision IML. This is very important, especially in the medical sector," Ziemer continues.
The engineering team is currently working on a solution to apply the scale of a centrifuge tube using IML. In this case, IML is to replace the printing technology used so far. Ziemer is aware that the IML process must be very precise, reliable, and repeatable and to some extent, tolerances (print to cut) of the labels have to be compensated too.
"We are able to reproduce these very precise IML processes. In doing so, we combine our experience with the innovations we have developed. Moreover, we are already working on future technologies, such as high-precision positioning, which we will present this year during the K trade fair in Düsseldorf," Ziemer explains.
The steps you need to take before investing in AMRs.
You wouldn’t ask an architect to build anything without designing it in AutoCAD first, so why are you installing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) without simulating the deployment in software first? OTTO Motors’ CEO Matthew Rendall discusses how simulation is used to save cost, validate feasibility, mitigate risk, and evaluate ROI – all before robots are on site at a facility. Rendall will show real-world examples from both greenfield and brownfield deployments of how simulation is used to identify inefficiencies early, reduce deployment time, and model what success looks like. He’ll answer questions such as:
• How will AMRs behave in a facility? • What is the optimal number of AMRs? • What are the impacts of different design options? • Where are the potential workflow bottlenecks?
Meet your presenter Matt Rendall is CEO and co-Founder of OTTO Motors, where he is responsible for driving the company vision and strategic commercialization of the company’s autonomous mobile robots. OTTO provides self-driving vehicle technology for material transport to some of the world’s companies, including Ford Motor Co., General Electric, Toyota Motor Corp., and more. Rendall began his career by developing and commercializing complex electro-mechanical systems. He held various research and development positions in automation, automotive, and defense industries. He holds a bachelor of applied science from the inaugural mechatronics engineering class and a master’s in business, entrepreneurship, and technology, both from the University of Waterloo. Rendall was also recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year and a Business Insider 40 Under 40 People to Watch.
About the company OTTO Motors is Clearpath Robotics’ industrial division, providing autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) for material handling inside manufacturing facilities and warehouses. OTTO is trusted for mission-critical deliveries spanning the most demanding of industrial environments. Customers include Fortune 100 brands such as GE and Toyota.
Join us on August 3, 2022, at 12PM ET for our look at how additive manufacturing is accelerating innovative design and manufacturing roundtable.
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