Medical device manufacturing equipment leader Vante, which focuses its activities on catheter manufacturing, now has a new $1 million state-of-the-art machining center and mold shop at their global headquarters in Tucson, AZ.
"After two years of intensive planning and work, Vante is very excited to announce that our new machining and mold facility is up and running. It accomplished numerous corporate goals, including reducing tooling order turn around time from as much as five weeks to about one week," states Brent Fausett, Vante vice president and general manager, "allowing us to better serve our customers."
The new facility houses a number of state of the art machines, such as a CNC (Computer Numerical Controlling Center) lathe which creates the rounded external profiles of molds and a CNC mill, which creates square profiles. Their Swiss Screw Machine makes mandrels, or pins, which are an integral part used in tooling and devices. Their EDM (Electronic Discharge Machine) produces the inside profiles of molds. "These machines give us the ability to very precisely produce parts by maintaining tolerances down to .005 of an inch," states Bill Thomasson, vice president and COO.
Having hired a number of staff to help run the new facility, Vante aims to produce about 90% of its device components, other than molds, in house by the end of 2011. In addition, the company will be able to produce as many as eight molds a day with its new equipment.
"Vante is committed to providing our clients with best of breed products and services and our new capabilities will allow us to do that," states Roger Vogel, Vante chairman, president, and CEO.
Vante produces a number of catheter tipping devices, including the SAFFIRE System, which consists of a model 4200 RF generator and one of two forming platforms, which can be teamed with a variety of tipping, welding, and forming molds for many different applications.
Vante is an employee-owned, global technology company that designs and produces best of breed products for the precise manipulation of medical plastics. It is focused on catheter development and manufacturing, bio-pharmaceutical products, and related engineering services.