Medical Design Briefs - July 2023 - 35

Increasing Throughput and Inspection Information with
Automated 3D Scanning Technology
F
ormed in 2005, Orchid Orthopedic Solutions is a medical
device manufacturer providing contract manufacturing services
for orthopedic procedures to original equipment manufacturers
(OEMs) and other companies within the orthopedic
industry. With 12 locations worldwide, Orchid specializes in
solutions for implant procedures in major orthopedic markets,
including hip reconstruction, knee reconstruction, spine, trauma,
extremities, and sports medicine. Orchid's location in Oregon
City, OR, specializes in the investment casting manufacturing
process for knee implants, including 3D wax printing,
machining, and finishing knee femoral components and
stemmed tibial plates. These small parts begin as wax and turn
into cobalt-chromium castings.
Although Orchid offers design services, customers typically
contract with Orchid to manufacture their private designs to
their own requirements. Ensuring that the knee implant components
meet the customer's specifications requires accurate and
repeatable inspection. Due to the organic shape and curvatures,
inspection using a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) was
time-consuming and challenging to measure a few features. Customers
wanted to inspect more features, and Orchid wanted to
meet the demand faster.
" A CMM probe collects about two x-y-z measurements a secAn
example of a complete knee implant product from Orchid Orthopedic Solutions.
Automated ATOS 5 3D scanning knee implant components on a fixture inside ATOS ScanBox 5108.
Medical Design Briefs, July 2023
ond if you're lucky. Sometimes you need to wait for 200 measurements
to be taken before you can get the report to tell whether
or not the part is in or out of spec, and that creates downtime, "
says Frank Sears, lead quality engineer at Orchid's Oregon location.
Additionally, operating a CMM requires specific skills, training,
and environmental temperature, creating more limitations.
In 2019, Orchid's automation engineer led an effort to seek
technologies that would automate their dimensional measurement
and quality processes to decrease inspection time and increase
information. Orchid sent parts for evaluation to CAPTURE
3D to analyze their ATOS 3D measurement solutions.
After reviewing the results of a gage R&R (repeatability and reproducibility)
study performed with the technology, Orchid purchased
from CAPTURE 3D a robotic ATOS 5 ScanBox 5108 noncontact
blue light 3D scanner with accompanying GOM software
and VMR (virtual measuring room) module to fully automate
final inspection, in-process, and production inspection.
Because many of Orchid's customer requirements dictate what
metrology equipment is acceptable for inspection, implementing
ATOS technology took gaining buy-in from those customers.
" They want a gage R&R, and they want to make sure that no
matter how many different ways you set the part up on a fixture,
that inspection will find the part the same way every time and
correlate with a computerized CMM inspection method, which
has historically been the industry standard. So, if we could correlate
the CMM and show a good gage R&R, which is about 10
percent of the feature tolerance, it's much easier for customers
to buy off on the process. There's
a lot of other inspection systems
out there, but they're not able to
get down to 10 percent of the
feature tolerance, which is where
we want to be, " says Sears. In addition,
where CMMs collect
points where the probe touches
the surface, ATOS measures fullfield
surface geometry using advanced
blue light fringe projection
technology, thus creating an
information-rich digital twin of
the entire product.
After ATOS technology passed
numerous correlation and gage
R&R studies, Orchid earned
buy-in from two customers for a
total of five different products
within the first 12 months following
the purchase.
www.medicaldesignbriefs.com
35

http://www.medicaldesignbriefs.com

Medical Design Briefs - July 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Medical Design Briefs - July 2023