Keep up or get left behind

Cycle times vary from 2 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the part. Instruments may have shorter cycle times than implants, but can involve as many as 50 components at final assembly.Turner Medical Inc. is one of the few Tier 1 level suppliers to the medical industry that can boast it manufactures FDA-approved surgical implants and the devices used to install them. Producing both implants and instrumentation is considered rare for non-OEM medical companies, but the shop that once specialized in tool and die work is now a recognized leader in medical manufacturing with upwards of $1.75-million worth of product shipped out of its facility on a monthly basis to customers nationwide.

Becoming a successful instrument and implant shop did not happen overnight at Turner Medical. It took a great deal of time, effort, and commitment on the part of all of the shop’s 80 employees to attain ISO 13485 certification and gain FDA registration. This achievement also hinged on the shop’s continuous forward thinking approach to manufacturing and, more specifically, machine tools.


In With the New
As common practice, Turner Medical routinely sells its outdated machine tools to make room for the latest new technology. While many shops hang on to machines as long as possible, Turner Medical operates under the belief that manufacturing with old technology comes at a price.

“If a shop lags in regards to machine tool technology, it will get left behind in the medical industry. A shop cannot compete when working on outdated technology,” says Bill Turner, president of Turner Medical. “Those machines simply take up space and fall short when compared with the speed, cycle times, and surface finish capabilities of newer equipment. Older technology may remain current longer in other industries, but not in the medical machining world.”

Turner Medical purchases a great deal of advanced machine tool technology from Mazak Corp. The shop’s 17 Mazak machines, acquired through Mazak distributor Pinnacle Machine Tools, provide the necessary complex machining capability, dependability, efficiency, precision, and most importantly, speed, that Turner Medical needs to remain competitive and cost effective.

“The future in medical machining is taking fast, light cuts at high spindle rpm to actually remove more material in less time than is possible running slower and taking heavier cuts. Any time we can bring in new machines, such as the Mazaks, and knock 40% off a part cycle time, we are taking cost out of that part,” Turner explains.


Components, Devices
Some of the medical components Turner Medical manufactures include those for orthopedic surgery, specifically spinal devices and implants. It also supplies customers with various other implants such as rods, plates, and screws, as well as surgical products such as screwdrivers, mallets, cutting tools, bone pins, drill sleeves and guides, locking nuts, depth gauges, and removal instruments.

When the shop initially entered the medical sector, it manufactured mostly instruments, but that work came in waves. To fill the gaps between instrument jobs, Turner Medical added implants to its repertoire and boosted its working schedule from two 10-hour shifts Monday through Friday to around-the-clock production.

Cycle times vary from 2 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the part. Instruments may have shorter cycle times than implants, but can involve as many as 50 components at final assembly.

High machine tool spindle rpm lets Turner Medical increase metal removal speeds by maximizing feed­rates for the extremely small tooling it uses for cutting intricate features in medical parts made from a variety of stainless steel and titanium. The shop considers a 0.125" diameter endmill a big tool and routinely works with cutters as small as 0.040" in diameter.

Small tooling is used for machining parts such as spinal implants. These implants are actually sets – two pieces that match up with each other. Each piece requires an extremely intricate tooth pattern for gripping the human spine. The shop machines the titanium implants complete on its Mazak INTEGREX i-150 multitasking machines featuring 12,000rpm milling spindles and 5,000rpm main spindles.

Mazak’s INTEGREX i-150 is a compact footprint multitasking machine that turns and mills small complex handheld parts. It eliminates the drawbacks typically associated with turn-mill-type machines, such as short axis strokes and restricted machining areas. The milling spindle on the machine moves in ±3.94" Y-axis strokes and provides Turner Medical with -10° to 190° B-axis movement in increments as small as 0.0001°.


Lot Sizes Vary
Part volumes differ between medical instruments and implants. An instrument job can involve lot sizes from one to 100 pieces, while implant jobs entail part families requiring hundreds of pieces each. The shop machines most of its implants on either its Swiss-style machines or on the Mazak INTEGREX i-150s.

Turner saw the INTEGREX i-150 during a Mazak-hosted trip to Japan before the machine was available in the United States. He immediately realized it would benefit his operations.

The shop has two INTEGREX i-150s on its shopfloor, arranged face-to-face in a cell that runs production 24/7. One operator oversees both machines that, for the most part, run unattended with 4ft bar feeders supplying raw part material. The machines have a bar work capacity to 2.56" diameters.

“With the Mazak INTEGREX i-150s, we have increased machining speed and improved on tolerances. Their speed and accuracy are consistent, and they, along with our other Mazak machines, provide the flexibility to run either instruments or implants on the same machine,” Turner explains.

Among its many Mazak machines, the shop also has three Mazak VARIAXIS 500-5X II 5-axis vertical machining centers, and one VARIAXIS 630-5X II 5-axis vertical machining center, all of which provide done-in-one part capability through full simultaneous 5-axis machining. According to Turner, the more machining operations the shop can do on one machine, the better its part quality.

Turner Medical’s VARIAXIS 500-5X II machines sport 12,000rpm spindles, while its VARIAXIS 630-5X II offers 18,000rpm. Machine table sizes for the two models measure 500mm x 400mm and 630mm x 500mm, respectively. Both machine models feature tilting-rotary tables that tilt 150° and rotate 360°.

Compact spindle cartridges on the Mazak VARIAXIS line of machines make for better workpiece accessibility while minimizing interference issues. Linear guides on all axes of the machine spindle heads not only reduce non-cutting time for Turner Medical, but also ensure the utmost accuracy for the shop’s high feedrate machining.

“Our Mazak INTEGREX and VARIAXIS machines are able to machine the top surfaces, side surfaces, and any surfaces in between on our parts. This done-in-one capability is critical to us because we try to eliminate the need to move parts from one machine to another to reduce the risk of error,” Turner states.

Additionally, the Mazak machines help ease complex part programming because they allow Turner Medical to program using conversational or EIA modes. The shop has had to switch from conversational programming to programming machines completely off line with EIA due to part complexity and the fact that, nine times out of 10, customers send solid models instead of prints.


Quality Delivered On Time
According to Charles Tucker, Turner Medical’s vice president of operations, medical customers want quality products delivered on time, and those customers are often more concerned about those two aspects than they are about price. To maintain a firm grip on quality and meeting delivery dates, Tucker says that the shop keeps all manufacturing operations in-house, except for anodizing and chroming.

“We must continuously control our processes. All of them, and not just machining, but order scheduling, part flow through the shop, and materials – logging everything we do,” Tucker explains. “An order for 1,000 medical parts means we ship 1,000 perfect parts. One bad part and it is the end of Turner Medical’s business.”

On top of having to fulfill FDA requirements, Turner Medical must also abide by the specific guidelines of individual customers. These added specifications often restrict the shop in regards to changing part features or how they are machined. There is no leeway, and the shop must simply adapt its machining talents to the different materials and specifications that customers demand.

Practically all jobs at Turner Medical are due in two to four weeks – from instrument or implant inception to shipped part. The work changes often and quickly for the shop. It is not uncommon to have a job practically ready to ship when the customer calls with an engineering change.

“This is the aspect of the medical industry that helps keep work from going off shore. Shops must be able to react quickly to product changes that happen on a daily basis, and that is tough to contend with from across an ocean,” Tucker comments.


Moving to Medical
Turner Medical originated from Turner Machine, a small defense subcontractor shop that Bill Turner’s father, John Turner, started by working out of a garage behind his house. Turner Machine grew into a tool and die shop with about 15 employees and was a leading supplier of automated equipment for the automotive and appliance industries during the 1990s.

In 2001, a downturn in the economy sent most of Turner Machine’s work overseas and to Mexico. Turner and Tucker saw the writing on the wall and began laying the groundwork for the shop to transition into the medical industry.

By 2008, the shop was focusing exclusively on medical work, and its name changed to Turner Medical Inc. The new company has been successful through its expertise in various medical parts. Turner medical delivers on its solid commitment to strict quality standards, on-time deliveries, open communication with customers, skilled personnel, and advanced manufacturing technology.

The staff at Turner Medical rely on the Mazak machines to produce quality medical implants and instrumentation.Attaining its ISO certification and FDA registration took Turner Medical about two years. These two accomplishments were necessary for the shop to expand further into the medical industry by taking on surgical implant work.

“The process was long and took great effort, mainly because the medical industry is quite a small and close knit group of manufacturers,” Turner states. “A shop cannot just one day declare itself a medical shop; it has to prove itself to be accepted.”

The first job that got Turner Medical in the door was producing tooling for a medical OEM. The shop built fixtures and in-process gaging for that customer, which progressively increased the work it sent over to Turner Medical. Through word of mouth, other medical manufacturers contacted the shop to have work done. The incoming jobs snowballed into the shop’s current manufacturing workload, which contains 60% medical instruments and 40% implants.

Not all of Turner Medical’s hard work and dedication has gone unnoticed. In 2010, the shop won the 2010 Alabama Small Manufacturer of the Year Award for its commitment to growing the company in the medical field and supplying customers with quality products delivered on time.

The shop was nominated by its local county chairman, having to document how it transitioned from a tool and die shop to a medical manufacturer for the Business Council of Alabama. Together with the Alabama Technology Network, the Business Council of Alabama presented the award to Turner Medical.


Turner Medical Inc.
Athens, AL
turnermedicalinc.com


Pinnacle Machine Tools
Meridianville, AL
pinnaclemachine.net


Mazak Corp.
Florence, KY
mazakusa.com