Digital manufacturing and CNC machining are changing the prosthetics landscape for good, just ask Mike Schultz, a Paralympian and founder of a prosthetics company designed for high-impact sports. That was my takeaway from a recent webinar that presented his inspiring story alongside how the development of medical devices is changing, with an emphasis on digital manufacturing.
The webinar titled, Partnership in Medical Device Manufacturing: From Concept to Market, featured Dan Snetselaar- Product Leader, CNC Machining at Protolabs, a company that provides rapid manufacturing of 3D printed, CNC-machined sheet metal and injection-molded custom parts for prototyping and production. Protolabs is in many markets including medical devices and consumer products.
This webinar explored the development of medical devices, focusing on collaboration, innovation, and the role of digital manufacturing in bringing ideas to life. According to Snetselaar, the medical industry is shaping manufacturing because of the immense need for mass customization and fast speed to market. But in medical devices, especially prosthetics, a more custom approach is often necessary. Because of this, there is a push toward digital manufacturing, which is all about relevant information moving between parties quickly to speed up decision-making, and ultimately, production.
“Digital manufacturing offers us that online interface where you can get information, send files, get quotes, and all other information quickly- that’s the digital manufacturing goal,” says Snetselaar.
Digital environments create a space where information is easily passed for a truly collaborative design process. Protolabs webinar
Collaborative design process
An example of such collaboration can be seen in the example with Mike Schultz (nicknamed “Monster Mike”) and his prosthetics line. Schultz suffered a devastating snowmobile accident in 2008 that led to the amputation of his left leg above the knee. In response, Schultz built a prosthetic leg in his garage that could withstand extreme sports and went on to become a top-level adaptive athlete.
But first, he founded BioDApt, a company that designs, manufactures, and distributes high-performance lower limb prosthetic components used for action sports and activities with similar physical demands. Through a partnership, Protolabs and BioDApt created custom machined aluminum components that are a part of the newest cutting-edge prostheses, the Moto Knee and Versa Foot2 system.
For the parts, Schultz selected aluminum 6061 for its strength, light weight, and corrosion resistance. The machined parts included redesigned linkages and entirely new designs to improve range of motion between the knee and foot.
“I really was working to upgrade to a smaller, lighter weight, system, with a better fit and finish, to gain more flex range with both the ankle and knee, working with a BioDapt designer on last-minute changes on all of this and then sending to Protolabs for quick-turnaround parts.”
Protolabs’ CNC machining service offers machined prototypes and production parts in as a fast as a day. In this case, the final adjustments were sent to Protolabs on a Saturday night and the parts were delivered on Sunday morning, enabling Schultz to leave the following day for the X Games.
According to Snetselaar, accelerating innovation is the name of the game and being first to market for medical devices is so important in the segment. Modern digital manufacturing that includes rapid machining/prototyping can accelerate highly-specialized product development — in this case, adaptive sports prosthetics.
