Computer aided design (CAD) has been around for a long time now. With growing computer power in the late 1980's, CAD took root commercially. Today, it is firmly entrenched in the creation of nearly every modern product, which begins its life as a CAD file. CAD is used to create, modify, and optimize designs for a variety of industries, including architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and construction. CAD includes a wide range of tasks, like drafting, modelling, rendering, animation (if needed), and analysis of products and services. Till the late 1990’s, there were only a handful companies that developed CAD software. Today however, there are many companies that produce CAD software and vie for the ever growing demand for CAD services. In this article, we will take an overview of how CAD benefits medical devices.
What are Medical Devices?
Medical devices are instruments, apparatus, machines, implants, or other similar articles that are intended for use in the diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, or prevention of diseases or other medical conditions. Medical devices can range from simple tools like thermometers and blood pressure monitors to complex devices like MRI machines, pacemakers, and surgical robots. As per Statista, revenue in the medical devices segment is projected to reach US$470.60 bn in 2023. Revenue in the medical devices segment in India is projected to reach US$5.99 bn in 2023, and is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2023-2027) of 8.35%, resulting in a market volume of US$ 8.26 bn by 2027.
In recent years, the medical devices industry has seen significant growth, driven by factors such as an aging population, rising healthcare costs, and increasing demand for personalized and home-based medical devices. This has led to increased competition, with new players entering the market and established companies expanding their product portfolios. The growing demand for medical devices has necessitated the use of software tools for rapid innovation as manufacturing companies must continuously develop new and better products to remain competitive, and CAD is one such tool.
Use of CAD in Medical Devices
Proper designing of medical devices is vital in medical care. Newer technologies and innovative devices not only help monitor a patient's health, they can also extend data collection and collation. A repository of such data can prove to be beneficial in monitoring a patient's vital signs and organs, and may be able to detect diseases faster. Proper and thoughtfully designed medical devices can also prevent significant errors during critical procedures. Since CAD is the starting step of most medical devices today, it is important to choose the right CAD software for designing. But before we delve into that, let us briefly see how CAD can improve and add value to medical device design.
Choosing Proper CAD Software
Since CAD plays a stellar role in the design of a medical device, it is important to choose the right software. CAD software enables designers to create accurate, precise, and optimized designs while saving time and resources. Thanks to better processing power, CAD software of today provides flexible, powerful and affordable device design. By leveraging it properly, medical device manufacturers can improve the quality and effectiveness of their products, leading to better patient outcomes and improved healthcare.
There are many CAD software developers in the market today that provide different features. One note worthy CAD software that finds favour with medical device manufacturers is PTC Creo. It is one of the pioneering CAD software that provides parametric modelling. Parametric modelling is a process that provides the ability to change the shape of model geometry as soon as the dimension value is modified. This greatly saves time for engineers, especially at the device design stage. Creo’s CAD capabilities can be a valuable tool for the conceptualization, simulation, modelling, and collaboration of medical devices. By providing a comprehensive solution for product design and development, Creo can help to reduce the time and cost associated with developing new medical devices, while ensuring that they are safe, reliable, and effective.
Final Thoughts
From its humble beginnings, computer-aided manufacturing has come a long way, as it has had the chance to be adopted and integrated within a stream of modern technologies due to the rapid development of this technology. With growing computer power and newer features, CAD continues to be reinvented within the manufacturing business as it is one of the most powerful and important tools for engineers, mechanical designers, and architects. There are various advantages of using CAD aided manufacturing in the implementation of a new product that include better designs, quick turnaround at the prototyping stage and faster time to market. The explosive growth of medical devices due to factors like aging population, better manufacturing technology that includes additive manufacturing (AM, also called as 3D printing) is sure to benefit from sophisticated CAD software, one of which is PTC Creo.