Increases innovation and market presence using CAM Express
Increases innovation and market presence using CAM Express
Case Study
Specialist healthcare manufacturer increases innovation and market presence using CAM Express
MEDIN
The Czech Republic’s largest manufacturer of surgical and dental tools, implants for traumatology and orthopedics gets better products to market faster with CAM Express
Fundamental change in CNC process
MEDIN a.s., (MEDIN) originally called Chirana, was founded in 1949. In 1992, the government-owned company was bought by its employees, transformed into a public company and renamed. In 2005, the company purchased the Walter medical technology business. The acquisition added orthopedics to the company’s portfolio. Today, the company is the biggest manufacturer of healthcare technology in the Czech Republic. Its product lines include surgical and dental tools, implants for traumatology and orthopedics.
With exports representing over half of its sales, MEDIN is quite successful internationally, distributing its products throughout Europe, Russia (where it operates a subsidiary), Latin America and the Middle East.
In the early 1990s, MEDIN invested in state-of-the-art computer numerical control (CNC) technology that made it possible to manufacture products of complex shapes and, at the same time, to achieve both high-quality and efficient production. As part of its continuous improvement goals, the company continues to gradually introduce new production technologies for CNC processing.
The production requirements are especially demanding, because products designed for medical purposes – often based on rust-resistant steel, titanium alloys and composites – must be meticulously accurate. In addition, surgical techniques and instruments are constantly changing. For example, recently, the trend is to replace robust implants with smaller ones. Ultimately, smaller, highly contoured implants put greater demands on machine tools.
In 2009, MEDIN completely switched to computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) tools. The company needed a suitable tool for management of software documentation and subsequent manufacturing of products through CNC programs. Siemens Digital Industries Software’s CAM Express software was chosen. Already using Siemens Digital Industries Software’s Solid Edge® software for highly efficient design, the introduction of CAM Express fundamentally changed the way that MEDIN created CNC programs.
