Production costs of medical instrument halved

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Feb 10, 2006

Redesign of medical scalp pen cuts production costs, resulting in volume production of the device staying in the UK rather than moving to the Far East.

Triteq has enabled one of its clients to halve its production costs and eliminate the need to move its manufacturing to the Far East.

Cinimod has used Triteq's design engineering services to improve the efficiency of the existing design of its medical Scalp Pen device.

The redesign has let Cinimod cut its production costs, resulting in volume production of the device staying in the UK, according to Ken Hall, Technical Director at Triteq.

"The product had to be designed to be disposable, easy to use and intrinsically safe, and as such we needed to keep costs to a minimum to make it accessible to as many health authorities as possible," he said.

"To achieve the cost targets, Triteq carried out the redesign and modifications free of charge in return for a royalty, based on each unit manufactured and a minimum order quantity".

Eddie Adamowicz, Managing Director at Cinimod, said: "As a result of Triteq's creative approach to the design process and sound advice combined with their engineering skills, we have been able to approximately halve production costs on the original design and choose a UK based production partner which allows us greater control over quality of the end product".

The Scalp Pen cuts the foetal blood sampling procedure from 20 minutes down to three minutes and provides medical teams with critical blood gas analysis data.

The device removes the skill required for foetal blood sampling by automating the process.

The single use self-contained unit provides an in-built light to give precision control while optically sampling across a catheter during the collection procedure.

A sample-full detection facility switches on an LED to indicate to the user when the sample is completed.

Scalp Pen is being launched in the UK early in 2006, with further interest already declared from health authorities in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy.