Authored by Nitesh

Introduction – Client Overview

The Indian medical device industry is growing rapidly and poised with steady growth. However, the opportunity to serve patients with innovation and technological advancements also brings in significant challenges to medical device manufacturers. The medtech market requires a strategic focus on product quality along with a consistent product manufacturing process and supplier network to cater to dynamic processes and control parameters.

A medtech company founded to provide international quality neonatal products approached Karkhana.io for manufacturing of infant radiant warmers. Their intensive care equipment for newborns with a mission to reduce mortality rates has helped them build a breakthrough in medical technology. Their main product Infant radiant warmers are one of the first in the country with significant innovations aimed at facilitating newborn care.

Criticalities of the project

The client did not have a detailed drawing and tolerance specification of the product to be manufactured. This was a major challenge encountered in the project, since the limitations in terms of overall product dimensions would lead to an increase in the project timeline. Additionally, this would also lead to communication challenges pertaining to the manufacturing requirement exacting quality and regulatory standards. 

The in-house engineering team of Karkhana.io took on the entire project of not only analyzing the structural integrity of the product but also providing design recommendations to ensure cost-effectiveness while maintaining the international quality standards.

Karkhana.io Solution – Reverse Engineering of the Product

The client had a limitation of not having detailed drawings of the product to facilitate the product development process and instead had a set of parts similar to the manufacturing requirements which was then used as a reference to build the product. The engineering team of Karkhana.io deconstructed the sample parts of the product offered by the client in order to extract the design requirements from them. This way the engineering team was able to unveil information about the original design and construction of the project.

When reverse engineering the structure of the infant radiant warmer, the key dimensions and attributes of the part elements were critically analyzed to extract the product performance capacity. For this coordinate measuring machines (CMM) was employed to gain accurate readings of the product’s specifications which were automatically logged in the Karkhana.io’s product database. After all the pertinent information had been gathered and recorded, this data was then used to create CAD drawings for subsequent analysis and development.

Sheet metal fabrication & 7-tank powder coating process

The CAD drawings created were used to prepare a plan for the sheet metal fabrication process. In order to provide a sturdy design with durable and long-lasting resistance to chemicals and corrosion, the manufacturing team of Karkhana.io recommended a 7-tank powder coating for the infant radiant warmer. As part of the process, Zinc Phosphate Solution is applied which helps in making the coating of the sheet metal surface smooth and uniform.

Supply chain consolidation and flexibility

Karkhana.io has a wide network of supplier bases specially equipped with advanced manufacturing techniques to cater to medical device equipment. The in-house engineering expertise of Karkhana.io works in conjunction with these suppliers for seamless execution of the manufacturing requirements. The digital manufacturing platform of Karkhana.io has anticipated and carefully analyzed the manufacturing requirements of the medical device industry and has built a reliable supply chain with various capacities and capabilities.

With Karkhana.io, the client team realized that they could significantly reduce the cycle time by automating the workflow tasks of sourcing & management, quoting and quality control. The complete manufacturing of infant radiant warmer was completed within a mere span of 15 days, exacting all the quality, documentation and inspection requirements.

Medtech Manufacturing with Karkhana.io

One of the major challenges faced by the Medtech manufacturers is to build an effective component supply chain that can cater high quality requirements as per the quality and regulatory standards. This is where Karkhana.io comes to the rescue, solving the supply chain issues with a host of companies ranging from startups and MSMEs to even corporate companies to take care of the manufacturing requirements. Karkhana.io is India’s foremost B2B on-demand manufacturing platform. 

Our manufacturing capabilities encompasses 3D printing, CNC machining, injection molding, vacuum casting and sheet metal fabrication. From providing quick design validation, manufacturability feedback via our expert in-house engineers, project management, transparent pricing, quality checks and logistics, we are your go-to market manufacturing partner! 

Karkhana.io can even manufacture components for the companies who have imported the entire machine. We have an expert team of design engineers and manufacturing engineers who can help in localization of components. We have capabilities to manufacture metallic and plastic components of CT Scan, MRI, PET scan, ECHO, EEG, ECG, PCR, stents, glucometers and many more.