MTD Micro Molding (Charlton, Mass.) recently announced that it has made significant investment in micro innovations this year.
The company has invested 10% of its annual revenue into innovation. The investments go toward funding internal R&D projects that look at new micro molding capabilities. MTD Micro Molding has also hired Patrick Haney as its first R&D Engineer as part of its investments.
MTD Micro Molding has invested in several pieces of equipment to keep up with medtech trends. The first of the new equipment is the new Gas Chromatography System. The system is a piece of analytical equipment that measures residual monomer and assists with material characterization to support more R&D projects. When the system is used with DCS equipment for material characterization, the company is able to build profiles o materials to analyze behavior that is important for manufacturing intricate components with critical medical functionality.
The company also invested in a Mitsubishi MX600 oil wire EDM machine that lets machine operators use ultra-small wire in the range of 0.0008 in. to 0.001 in.
“The machine has doubled our wire EDM capacity and has made getting down to the smallest wire diamerts much easier,” operations manager John Clark said. “Although our lead time to build new tools is driven by complexity of it and its components, on average, we were anywhere from six to eight weeks in production. Now, we can get components our to our customers in two to three weeks.”
MTD Micro Molding invested in a 6-axis robot, adding more functionality to in-line inspection and complex packaging scheme in a small footprint. An additional two new Sodick molding machines can increase production volume and speed.
