Market Trends

Mazak Targets Real-World Manufacturing Applications
Encompassing more than a traditional open house, Discover Mazak – Northeast will focus on specific medical and aerospace part manufacturing solutions, and on those solutions for other key regional industries. The two-day event is scheduled for May 17 - 18, 2011, and attendees are encouraged to come prepared with their most challenging medical, aerospace, or other industry-specific parts and projects.

Throughout each day of Discover Mazak – Northeast, a wide variety of keynote-speaker presentations, breakout sessions, and real-world application machining demonstrations will be conducted at multiple times, allowing attendees to configure their schedules to include all of the activities that are most important to their unique operations. This same schedule will run from 10am to 7pm each day, so visitors can attend either the first or the second day without missing any valuable information.

Mazak’s Northeast Regional Headquarters and Technology Center is conveniently located near Bradley International Airport, in Windsor Locks, CT.

To register for Discover Mazak – Northeast, visit mazakusa.com.

ISO 13485 Certification for Forest City Gear
Forest City Gear is now ISO 13485 certified. The official receipt of this medical certification, the process quality management certification for manufacturing medical devices, positions the company to actively pursue the growing medical device market.

Gears are now in production at Forest City Gear for various medical devices. Included in this production are a 4340 alloy steel gear for the articulation of the patient table in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) unit (shown in photo) and a brass gear for mechanical movement in an X-ray machine. In addition, the company is working on a composite gear assembly for a blood infusion pumping station and a specialty alloy gear for motion control on an artificial elbow mechanism.

These, and other medical gears, are all engineered and manufactured at the company’s factory in Roscoe, IL. forestcitygear.com

Foster Builds, Opens Medical Plastics Innovation Center
The Foster Corp., a PolyMedex Discovery Group, Medical Plastics Innovation Center has opened. The center provides comprehensive development services of advanced polymer formulations used in leading edge medical devices. It offers polymer compounding, molding and extrusion process evaluation, and material property testing. Foster’s Medical Plastics Innovation Center is located within the company’s Putnam, CT, headquarters facility and includes a wide range of equipment for comprehensive support of medical device development programs.

At the center of the facility is a twin-screw extrusion for blending and compounding new medical polymer formulations. The center also includes downstream equipment for processing evaluation, including injection molding and extrusion. The injection molding equipment is also suitable for producing test samples for mechanical or environmental testing. The center is equipped with an environmental oven for stability testing of polymers. fostercomp.com