Delivering Superior Efficiency, Economics and Part Qualification
Additive manufacturing (AM) has a major role to play in meeting healthcare objectives, particularly in the medical technology (MedTech) portion of the industry. As reported by SME, spending on healthcare additive manufacturing is expected to reach almost $22 billion in 2022. To achieve success, healthcare manufacturers and OEM providers need to go through the entire production cycle – from design and prototype, to delivery of qualified and certified parts – efficiently and cost-effectively.
Quality is a crucial component of AM healthcare initiatives as well as overall equipment effectiveness (OEE). The challenge is that metal AM processes and materials are not always standardized for critical components and applications. Sigma Additive Solutions meets this challenge by providing the deep expertise, systems and data to monitor and analyze the additive manufacturing process in real-time. Our company was founded in 2010 by scientists from the world-renowned Los Alamos National Labs and this strong research background backs up our company mission statement to set the QA standard for additive manufacturing.
The PrintRite3D in-process quality assurance (IPQA) solution offers benefits in research & development, prototyping, concept validation, as well as reducing or eliminating post-processing steps like CT scanning. Specific application areas include:
- Medical instruments including surgical and minimally invasive devices
- Diagnostic equipment ranging from laboratory to point-of-care (POC)
- Orthopedic devices including joints, spines and CMFs
- Dental applications including prostheses and implants
- Custom part development for all healthcare applications
Sigma Additive Solutions’ PrintRite3D software solution completes the digital thread and enables engineers, researchers and scientists to print qualified metal parts that meet the strictest guidelines and standards, allowing you to manufacture with confidence.
Sigma Additive Solutions’ PrintRite3D® is an advanced machine-agnostic solution that integrates with all major 3D metal printers. By actively monitoring the quality process layer-by-layer, and providing real-time defect detection, PrintRite3D ensures high quality output that meets regulatory and certification requirements. The solution is based on a decade of intensive research and collaboration with OEM providers and research institutions, and is designed to enable end users and service providers to manufacture and certify parts with a high degree of confidence.
We are able to deliver this confidence by collecting thermal data on the AM build process, applying data analytics to make the in-situ monitoring data meaningful, and then using that data to create a machine learning feedback loop that improves both individual part quality and the entire manufacturing process.
Whether you are a healthcare organization or a supplier to the industry, you now have the ability to reduce post-production testing time and costs, while creating a standardization and certification framework that serves your quality needs now and in the future. The objective is to create operational efficiency in real-time and build each part right, the first time, utilizing independent third-party quality assurance standards. This reduces your risks and error rate while improving process productivity and compliance.
PrintRite3D is designed to facilitate business functions like:
- Enable basic and advanced AM research
- Optimize and develop process parameters
- Develop new applications
- Enable medium- to high-complexity parts
- Support rapidly changing environments
- Foster partnerships between organizations of all types
Benefits of PrintRite3D for Healthcare:
- In-process quality assurance that immediately detects part defects
- Speeds the timing and accuracy of qualification and certification
- Provides part transparency with non-destructive testing
- Enables secure transfer mechanism for digital files for IP protection and true build portability
- Ensures part reliability that meets predetermined standards and qualifications
- Facilitates a closed-loop system for build planning, monitoring and feedback control
- Advances modeling and simulation by integrating processes and raw material data
