Companies don't always need complex CAD systems to handle the design and manufacture of plastic-injection molds for the medical-products industry, says Electromoulds president Tony Creti. He says a simple and less-expensive system can manage the extreme precision and efficiency required in working with medical products. The Montreal, Canada-based company uses KeyCreator NC from Kubotek USA Inc., Marlborough, MA (kubotekusa.com) to design and manufacture molds for medical labware including beakers, Petri dishes, and medical cassettes.

Creti says the software lets companies solve several problems relating to medical manufacturing. These include stringent FDA-compliance regulations that allow no margin for error. Products must reach market fast to maximize profits before copycats arrive. And customers often require prototypes under tight deadlines

The software accurately translates 2D files from other programs into 3D. For customers providing paper drawings or physical prototypes, the software allows manual translation of measurements to CAD files. It also creates precise, solid models from scratch.

In a recent project, Electromoulds designed special cassette molds for a manufacturer of disposable plasticware for medical laboratories. Cassettes hold biopsy specimens to be studied or stored. In the past, the cassettes used steel mesh or sponge to hold samples inside. This made it difficult to locate tiny specimens and added a costly second step to the assembly process.

“Our job was to design and manufacture a more useful and cost-efficient cassette mold that was only 13130.25 in. and had over 1,000 holes with diameters of 0.0001 in.,“ explains Creti.

The company created separate molds for the cassette's base and cover. The most complex cassette required eight-cavity molds for both the base and cover. The molds could contain no flaws or deviations no matter how small because their parts were attached together on an automated assembly line.

“This new concept took over two years from R&D to production, with multiple revisions and modifications between the cassette manufacturer, medical-laboratory customers, and us. KeyCreator makes this easy because it lets users sort geometry by attribute during the conceptual stage and define part relationships and file-distribution strategies at a later stage of the design,“ says Creti.