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Engineering design of durable vs. disposable products

 

We design and develop client products of durable construction, disposable construction, and a combination thereof.
 

Durable products

We design and develop the precision guts of durable equipment and instrumentation products:

  • By equipment we mean mainly mechanical.  (Think pneumatically-triggered medical slurry dispenser.)
  • By instrumentation we mean heavily electronic.  (Think automated clinical laboratory sample processor.)

Durable (life over 3 years) products are designed for unit volume typically ranging 50 - 5,000 per annum.  These are generally complex products, manually assembled.
 

Disposable products

We design and develop disposable and limited-reuse products:

  • Some disposables complement equipment and instrumentation.  (Think probe cover for an ear thermometer.)
  • Some disposables stand alone.  (Think tracheostomy tube.)
  • Some devices see limited re-use.  (Think portable hydration system for long-distance sports.)
  • Some are customized by the user.  (Think patient-specific EKG electrode array.)

Disposable and limited re-use products are high unit volume at very low unit cost.  These are typically simple products with a strong emphasis on materials, tooling, and manufacturing process.

 

Pie chart showing distribution of our revenue by type of product durability

 

Our product engineering design expertise includes manufacturing processes and design-for-manufacturing.

Our contract product development services include prototype build and test, vendor sourcing and liaison (through first-article), and capital equipment specification and sourcing.  Our only manufacturing is the occasional special-build of custom dispensing equipment for industrial end-users.

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