Plastics News' West Coast correspondent Roger Renstrom gathered these news items during several concurrent manufacturing trade shows held Jan. 29-31 in Anaheim, Calif. - including Medical Design & Manufacturing West.
Creganna launches first injection press
The Marlborough, Mass., site of Creganna Medical Devices is installing its first injection molding machine, a 38-ton Arburg, to provide contract design and specialty needle manufacturing services.
Separately, the Galway, Ireland-based firm is launching a software design tool and looking for acquisitions in contract design, polymer extrusion and specialty-needle markets with an eye on moving up the value chain of its customers.
At Marlborough, Creganna doubled the size of its plant to 20,000 square feet. The company expects that site's 20-person workforce to reach at least 50 people by early 2009.
The United States is the company's largest market, accounting for more than 40 percent of sales, product manager Maura Leahy said in an interview in Anaheim.
The U.S. plant, which operates a microextruder to make small-bore tubing, also will add capabilities offered at Creganna's two Galway plants, including grinding, laser processing, micromachining, three-dimensional rapid prototyping and stereolithography.
The firm expects to spend 40 percent of its fiscal-year capital budget on the Marlborough plant, which is being designated as Creganna's global manufacturing base for specialty needle manufacturing.
Creganna focuses on manufacturing precision tube-based medical devices and subassemblies.
The company said it is introducing a high-performance cobalt-chromium alloy, under the trade name Javelin, for use in demanding specialty needle applications. It also is developing new solutions for improved echogenic enhancement, polymer-metal composite shaft materials, long- length needles and complex needle profiling.
Tyco Electronics builds clean room
Tyco Electronics Ltd. has built a 5,640-square-foot Class 100,000 clean room at its 250,000-square-foot Greensboro, S.C., facility.
Tyco uses the clean room for injection molding medical-grade plastic parts such as surgical suite disposables, invasive devices and surgical filter housings, the firm said at Medical Design & Manufacturing West. The clean room has closed-loop temperature and humidity controls.
The Greensboro site employs 630 and runs 76 presses from 55-275 tons, to mold components for critical-care products, pharmaceutical dose meters and delivery systems, among other items.
Tyco Electronics, with its main office in Berwyn, Pa., reported sales of $13.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Sept. 28.
The company became a publicly traded independent entity June 29, when former parent Tyco International Ltd. distributed all of Tyco Electronics' stock to common shareholders.
A&L Catheter starts with extrusion line
A&L Catheter Technologies LLC bought an American Kuhne 1-inch single-screw extruder with a 24-to-1 gear ratio to manufacture catheters.
Kent Anderson and Avong Lo formed the Brooklyn Park, Minn., business in January 2007. The extrusion line has been running since July, processing Pebax, nylon, polyurethane and other resins. A&L also offers prototyping and can make braided, variable stiffness, coiled, rapid exchange, peripheral balloon and atraumatic tipped catheters. It has an expandable, 400-square-foot Class 10,000 clean room.
A&L employs 13 at its 5,500-square-foot plant, mainly to supply customers in the Midwest.