Mitutoyo America Corporation (MAC) officials announce organizational changes. For the past 10 years, Shigeyuki Sasaki has provided leadership as vice president, executive vice president, and most recently, as president. His guidance has created a rich team environment with an emphasis on providing outstanding service to our customers throughout the United States and Canada. During his tenure as president, Sasaki oversaw expansion in virtually every department, as well as the opening of a new corporate headquarters and regional offices. As Sasaki enters his 40th year with Mitutoyo Corp., he has been asked to join the team in Germany to support Mitutoyo European operations. Sasaki has assumed an advisory role within Mitutoyo Europe.

For much of the past 20 years, Matt Dye and Doug Adkins have worked together to provide sales management and corporate leadership at MAC. They have assumed new roles within the company and continue to focus on the same core principles and beliefs of providing strong customer service with a dedicated team of highly trained professionals.

Matt Dye has been appointed president of Mitutoyo America Corp. During his 21-year career, Dye has served as a distributor of Mitutoyo products and held various positions within Mitutoyo America. For the past five years, Dye has served as vice president of measuring instrument sales and technical services. During this time, Dye emphasized the importance of customer service and worked to increase the skills and resources available to our sales division. With a background in distribution and strong support of our front-line sales partners, Dye will continue to emphasize growth in product performance, individual skill enhancement and the importance of superior customer support.

Doug Adkins has been appointed executive vice president of Mitutoyo America Corp. Adkins’ career started in the United States Marine Corps and has continued for the past 25 years in the industrial distribution sector, with 20 years in several different capacities at MAC, including his most recent position as vice president of distributed products. With experience in the high-volume small tool and major instrument line at MAC, Adkins will continue to fully support the growth of sales in the United States through our established distributor network.

Minneapolis, Minnesota and Rehovot, Israel – Stratasys Ltd. officials announced that enrollment is now open for 3DHEART, an investigator initiated trial. 3DHEART, which stands for 3D Hearts Enabling A Randomized Trial, is a randomized, single-blind clinical trial to study the use of patient-specific 3D printed models in pre-operative planning for pediatric heart surgery. Stratasys is providing in-kind support with printing of the models to be used in the trial.

The study is being led by physicians from New York-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Children's National Medical Center, and Phoenix Children's Hospital with up to 20 additional sites in the U.S. The study will focus on pediatric congenital heart patients requiring complex two-ventricle repair. The primary endpoint being studied is cardiopulmonary bypass time with secondary endpoints including the prevalence of surgical complications (morbidity), mortality, and physician assessment of utility. The study is being managed by OpHeart, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the odds and outcomes for children born with life-threatening heart defects.

"This study is incredibly important because it will finally quantify what we know from firsthand experience: 3D printed patient-specific models improve surgery, improve outcomes and result in lower treatment costs," says Dr. Yoav Dori, pediatric cardiologist, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "If we can empirically demonstrate this, it will be a game-changer for treating not only children with congenital heart defects, but patients across the board."

The study will enroll 400 pediatric patients in total.

Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, one of the world's largest 3D printing and advanced manufacturing service providers, is 3D printing heart models for 200 patients on Stratasys Connex multi-material, full color 3D Printers. These models are based on the patients' MRI or CT scans and enable the surgeon to evaluate and "practice" on an accurate replica of the patient's heart prior to actual surgery. The results of these 200 patients are being compared to the results of 200 patients who are being treated without the aid of 3D printed heart models.

"Stratasys is proud to be part of this historical study which for the first time will provide tier 1 data evidence on the potential benefits of using patient-specific, 3D printed surgical planning models," says Scott Rader, general manager, healthcare solutions, Stratasys. "We are committed to advancing the use of 3D printing for a variety of medical applications, including anatomical models, medical device prototypes, and prosthetic devices. Gathering this kind of data will raise awareness for the advantages our customers report seeing on an individual patient basis, including better planned surgeries with faster recovery times."

"Stratasys Direct Manufacturing is honored to contribute to such an impactful study with the potential to revolutionize surgical planning and change patients' lives for the better," states Greg Reynolds, VP of additive manufacturing at Stratasys Direct Manufacturing. "We understand the critical nature of this work and we've worked with the study investigators to develop a robust and responsive production process that puts these models in surgeons' hands in as little as three days."

"Stratasys' participation in the OpHeart clinical study is a vital part of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, aimed at shaping lives and making a difference by improving medical procedures, equipment, and processes," says Arita Mattsoff, VP public relations & thought leadership and responsible for CSR at Stratasys. "3DHEART is a perfect example of this kind of initiative, leveraging advanced 3D printing applications to potentially improve surgical outcomes."

"This study is truly extraordinary, in that it is a ‘village' effort. Doctors have seen firsthand how 3D-printing can save lives, but have not had the resources to quantifiably substantiate heretofore anecdotal evidence. This study will do that. I am proud to work with such an esteemed group of clinicians and industry leaders to improve the lives of children like my daughter, and thank Stratasys for their unwavering support," says OpHeart Executive Director, Anne Garcia.

Source: Stratasys

Steve Maxson, Graham Engineering Corp.’s director of business development for extrusion, has announced that the Spring Spotlight Medical Extrusion & Secondary Operations Conference will be held May 23, 2017, at the company’s technical center in York, Pennsylvania.

“The focus of our Spotlight conferences is on medical extrusion and secondary operations such as over-molding and braiding for catheters and delivery systems,” says Maxson, who is the conference organizer. “It is my pleasure to announce Len Czuba of Czuba Enterprises as the keynote speaker. A 30-year veteran of polymer synthesis, compounding, and material development in the medical device industry, his product development experience and polymers expertise assist partner firms to take products, especially medical devices, from concept to market.”

Graham Engineering Corp. organizes two Spotlight Conferences annually in varying locations to address important developments and new technologies in medical extrusion and secondary operations.

Maxson’s background combines experience in the fields of medical extrusion technology and medical device manufacturing. His career includes roles with Raumedic Inc., Vante, and American Kuhne, now a brand of Graham Engineering Corp.

Lucideon’s upcoming webinar, Validation of Additive Manufactured Components through Specialized Testing, has experts looking at how advanced testing can help in the development of new and improved additive manufactured products. The webinar will be Thursday April 27, 2017 at 10:00am EDT.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is being used in more and more mainstream manufactured products. As with any product it is important to understand how the materials used and the structure of components affect the performance. Specialized testing equipment and custom testing methods can help to establish how products will perform, react with their environment and accelerate the failure mechanisms of products to help understanding and future developments.

Brent Holloway, director of sales and marketing at Lucideon says, “Additive manufacturing has potential to change manufacturing for a number of industries. Some people would go so far as to say that AM will be classified as a new age of manufacturing, a new industrial revolution. But there are still a lot of unknowns with AM and the best way to work those out is by testing, producing accurate data, analyzing, and quickly iterating to improve those products.

“In this webinar, we’ll be discussing a variety of tests and techniques that can help you understand how your materials, processes and component structures are performing in application conditions and how creative test design can correlate design intent with actual performance. At Lucideon we specialize in materials and product development, and we know that the value of powerful analytical testing and expert interpretation is a big part of what keeps the market leaders at the top. For anybody looking to get ahead in the additive manufacturing industry this webinar will be of great value.”