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Case studies 6/11

Medical device housings for Berger & Kraft

Customer


Berger and Kraft is one of the innovation leaders in the field of medicine and aesthetic surgery. The company uses modern methods to design more and more effective and completely safe devices for patients, which are later used in advanced medical procedures.

Challenge


The client contacted us to prepare the casing for new, specialist medical devices.

Why did the customer decide to use 3D printing?

The key customer requirements for the casing design included several features:

  • Option to order several dozen pieces per year.
  • Execution of the order as quickly as possible.
  • Possibility of changing the design in subsequent orders.
  • The material must be certified for use in medical devices

    • Due to these requirements, Berger and Kraft thecould not use of some other technologies became impossible.

    Injection moulding was excluded due to the immense initial cost of the mould (over 150,000 PLN). This solution might be cost effective only when ordering much larger volumes.

    Because of the thick housing walls and need for painting the details, using vacuum casting technology would make the design unsuitable for medical applications.

    The third variant that was rejected is use of a machining process. In this case, the main disadvantage was the unappealing aesthetics and the limitation to designing only quite simple shapes.

    Solution


    Finally, after consultation, the customer decided to use a 3D printer in HP Multi Jet Fusion technology, which met all the aforementioned requirements. The casing was made with a black + polyshot surface finish.

    Benefits


    After completing the project, we asked the client to list the most important advantages of the selected solution. Here’s what we have heard:

  • Low initial costs of the production
  • No technological limitations when designing parts compared to injection moulding and CNC moulding.
  • Aesthetically appropriate quality of the product and no need for varnishing, which is not allowed due to certification.
  • The use of HP MJF allowed us to significantly reduce the implementation time for the product to come on the market.

    As a potential disadvantage, the customer pointed out that with increasing production the profitability drops, thus boosting sales is inevitably connected with changing the production method. Now, however, it is the optimal solution.

    We would like to thank Berger and Kraft for trusting us and hope for rapid development and successful future projects.