Gyrus Medical

EFFICIENCY BOOST FOR MEDICAL DEVICES

A leading designer and manufacturer of electro surgical devices with a production facility in Cardiff, Wales, has gained substantial time and operational benefits from an investment in an OGP non-contact measurement system.

Gyrus Medical, a leading name in endosurgical devices and the company behind the PlasmaKinetic range of appliances, has a number of production facilities across Europe and America. Its instruments are used in a variety of critical operations where accuracy and precision can make the difference between success and failure, including arthroscopy, gynaecological procedures, prostate reduction and soft palate reduction as well as ENT and other procedures. When it comes to inspection, there is no second best.

The St Mellons, Cardiff manufacturing plant of Gyrus produces RF generators and precision electrodes for the company’s electro-surgical appliances. A number of EDM-machined, moulded, folded and etched parts including ceramics, plastics and alloys, are brought in to the facility to be incorporated into connector cables, interfaces and footswitches. With typical tolerances of 50 microns, repeatability of measurement is an absolute requirement to ensure that parts are compatible, well-fitting and fit for use over a long, trouble-free life.

For almost four years the company’s OGP non-contact measuring system, a SmartScope Flash 200 with dual sensor technology, has delivered the peace of mind needed to maintain full product confidence on goods inward inspection.

“We had a problem with a component we resourced from an external supplier” said Steven Patterson, Manufacturing Engineering Manager at the St. Mellons facility. “The component was being received into our clean room but a miss-alignment due to four holes being out of position meant that up to 20% of the supplied product was being rejected, causing delays to production.” We attempted to measure the hole positions and reported the tooling modifications to our supplier, but were unable to get correlation of measurements to part. This issue caused us to loose confidence in the supplier and created friction between the two companies.”

“We identified a need for better measurement technology and looked around the market for an inspection system that would meet our standards, we evaluated accuracy, repeatability and speed of throughput in four competitive systems and the OGP machine came out well ahead.” He goes on, “The software has been easy to understand and programming relatively simple, considering the complexity of some of the workload. In addition, the training and service from OGP UK has been excellent and our inspectors trust the machine and its results.”
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Using the OGP system, Gyrus is able to measure more than ever before so that process efficiency, as well as inspection cost benefits have been apparent.

One of Gyrus’ suppliers was so impressed with the OGP system, it bought the same machine and the parts it produces now go directly into stock at Gyrus without the need for incoming inspection. “Where a supplier is using the OGP system, we can have absolute confidence in the parts it produces,”

Although the system purchased by Gyrus is dual sensored – it incorporates a touch trigger probe system – Gyrus has found that the machine’s optical capabilities cover the vast majority of applications. Steve goes on, “The probe is useful but not a must-have for us. Non-contact inspection using the OGP image analysis software is fast and very capable, we seldom use the probe.”

Steve Patterson is unequivocal about the company’s choice of inspection system. “Our initial thoughts and conclusions about OGP systems have been fully justified by the performance of the Flash. I would have no hesitation in buying another should the need arise.”