Sometimes when we think of automation, we get this idea of a rigid, inflexible machine stamping out mountains of cookie cutter products ad infinitum. An important part of our business at Himed is making customized products that meet very specific customer requirements, sometimes in small batches. The cookie cutter approach would never work for us.

And yet we’ve turned to full or semi-automation for all of our proprietary Matrix™ surface treatment systems—and the benefits have been huge. The discrepancy between automation’s image and its reality can be a big one, something this article from Medical Design & Outsourcing made especially clear.

The article points out that automation is not just a way to save costs in the medical device industry, it’s a way to ensure consistency, flexibility, scalability, and reduce waste. It’s almost an echo of our mission statement: “Himed will never compromise on accuracy, precision, or quality.”

Our automated equipment delivers a level of accuracy that manual processes just can’t. Considering we deal in products and treatments that directly benefit the end-patient’s quality of life, precision and quality control matter a great deal.

But it’s not just accuracy that has made automation such an important part of our business, it’s also helped us keep up in a difficult time.

Automation during COVID

While we’d already seen the benefits of automation in our processes prior to 2020, the COVID pandemic has really driven the point home. Following best practices to protect the safety of our employees includes social distancing, which means fewer people can be physically involved in production at a time. Because of automation (most of which was already in place) we have been able to maintain our turnaround times, which generally fall in the order of weeks, while others in our industry have had to push production back, delivering turnaround times on the order of months.

The only way to make automation customizable

Another point in Medical Design’s article made a lot of sense with regards to using automation for variable, customized solutions. The only way to do it right is if the equipment is designed to handle customization from the start. You can’t turn the cookie cutter machine into a nimble, flexible operator. It has to be nimble from the outset.

One example that comes to mind is our Matrix MCD™ blasting system. It’s fully automated, but was designed to handle surface treatment specifications that range from incredibly smooth to roughly textured. And the geometries the equipment can handle are highly varied, treating virtually any dental and orthopedic implant our customers may need.

Scalability without a hitch

Then there’s the issue of scalability. Many of our clients came to us as small startups with a great idea for the medical devices they envisioned. Their initial runs were small — but eventually, after meeting with success in the marketplace, they would need to scale up their business tenfold. Without automation, that kind of ramp-up would require major adjustments on our part, reassigning or even hiring more people to keep up with demand. Thanks to automation, we are in a position to meet larger lot needs with very little adjustment.

Finally, costs

Of course, there is one popular understanding of automation that is fairly accurate — automation cuts costs. For all the reasons above, automation has allowed us to improve accuracy and efficiency which improves our overall operational costs. What that means is our customers get all that precision and adaptability at a better price than they would without automation.