Medical devices almost never belong to the mass-consumer market. But this technology changes exceptionally fast – even when such equipment is produced in low volumes. That is why the rapid prototyping of medical products is a critically important part of the design and development process.
Rapid prototyping is particularly useful in the low-volume production of medical devices.
Let’s take a look at the top benefits that the rapid prototyping methodology can offer in the field of medical technology.
Going beyond traditional limits of low-volume production
There are many challenges associated with low-volume production. The numbers of produced medical equipment are not big, and therefore it is difficult to achieve an economy of scale, which ultimately could limit profitability. Meanwhile, new technological advances require frequent re-working of existing designs in order to catch up with evolving needs of the health market.
In this regard, rapid prototyping provides a lot of flexibility: you can create custom products fast, respond rapidly to basically any changes in the health market and adapt to the evolving needs of your customers without the need to invest in large-scale manufacturing processes.
Low-volume manufacturing plus rapid prototyping is indeed an unbeatable competitive combination when developing and making health-related devices.
Freedom to choose the best technology
People often incorrectly assume that rapid prototyping is a narrow methodology covering just the hardware or software parts of newly developed equipment.
To create well-planned and functional prototypes of medical products, it is also necessary to define requirements and architectural design, analyze potential alternatives, engineer design, predict user interactions, plan integration and verification, and much more.
When applying principles of rapid prototyping, you have the freedom to choose and explore alternative technologies in every step of the development process without large up-front investments – even when you wish to create a fully assembled prototype of a working medical device.
But probably the best part is that you can combine different manufacturing technologies or switch them as needed. For example, vacuum casting could be the best choice for manufacturing plastic and soft rubber parts. But if you need to produce larger and more rigid parts, such as plastic enclosures for medical devices, equipment frames, or mounting platforms, reaction injection molding could be a better choice.
At this point, you are probably thinking, isn’t it expensive to use multiple manufacturing technologies for the purpose of building a prototype? Well, it doesn’t need to be. Let’s move on to the next benefit of rapid prototyping, which gives a precise answer to your question.
Prototyping even faster – through expert knowledge
Making prototypes requires a lot of prior experience. Also, manufacturing could be costly – if you try to do everything by yourself. Here, you only need to tap into the existing knowledge base through partnerships.
Contacting a specialized prototyping company that has the necessary know-how and its own technological lines optimized for low-volume manufacturing may quickly offset major costs associated with building new medical devices.
And not just that. Experts may assist in the initial stages of development when you need to generate and explore ideas. Or, they can provide detailed knowledge related to processes of medical certification, in order to reduce time to meet compliance requirements.
Early functional testing
When creating new medical devices, it is essential to test their real-world functionality as soon as possible. Through rapid prototyping, you can expand the entire development into several iterations. First, make a prototype that does only the most important functions. Then test this intermediary model, and optimize your design based on acquired valuable practical data.
Using early functional testing, you can also authenticate specifications or fine-tune parameters to achieve an even better end product. Early testing will help you make informed decisions about
development costs, project timescale, and resource requirements.
Early customer feedback
Would you like to conduct fast market testing? Most likely, your answer is ‘Yes’. Then, rapid prototyping is the way to go. Gathering early customer feedback using alpha or even pre-alpha prototype models is an extremely valuable opportunity for all manufacturers of medical devices.
Needless to say, it is better to fix issues and optimize functionality before your product goes mainstream.
Improved patient safety
And finally, we have the most important benefit – the possibility to improve patient safety. This is the most crucial aspect of prototyping medical devices.
You cannot simply rush to market your product, as risks and associated costs could be beyond the control of any company. That is why creating and testing prototypes first is the most certain way to detect and eliminate potential dangers.
You may be quite certain about your engineering knowledge. But with the help of rapid prototyping and a multi-stage approach to design refinement, you will be more likely to find hidden problems that are difficult to locate when you test only the final model.
Wrapping up
It is quite likely that in practice you will find even more advantages of the rapid prototyping methodology. But we are quite sure that even the most valuable benefits described in this article are quite enough to achieve a competitive advantage in the modern market of medical equipment.
And, always remember the most important thing – a thoroughly created prototype will help patients to stay safe when using medical devices developed by your company.