“In this industry, the patient always comes first,” says Jeremiah Allen, Norwood Medical’s VP of Technology & Engineering. “A quality mindset is in everything we do.”
Allen was recently featured in a MD+DI Qmed webinar titled “RAS Systems, Instruments & Implants Manufacturing.” Norwood has been in the RAS market for 15 years, and in 2022 manufactured more than 1.5 million robotic instruments. Allen discusses how Norwood’s capabilities and technology have evolved to meet the challenging demands of robotic-assisted surgery components, including smaller parts, tighter tolerances, higher complexity, and advanced technology such as artificial intelligence (AI).
“AI is here to stay,” Allen says. He describes how Norwood is leveraging AI for the company and its customers, including:
- Predictive maintenance
- Process optimization
- Digital fingerprint/digital twin
Norwood invests 3% of its annual revenue in automaton. Allen explains the benefits that the company has reaped from its investment in automation, including repeatability and accuracy, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), and lower cost of labor and manufacturing products.
Allen concludes his presentation with a discussion of metal injection molding (MIM), which has become an important technology to enable Norwood to manufacture the smaller, more complex parts needed for RAS. MIM is capable of producing high-precision parts with complex geometries in a wide range of materials, with scalability and cost efficiency.
“We like to say, ‘What we make matters,’” Allen says. “We put a lot of care and precision with our hands, hearts, and minds into making sure the components that help people in surgeries do what they’re supposed to do.”
