Pro-Dex Partners with UC Irvine School Of Engineering

Pro-Dex Inc. officials announce that the company has partnered with UC Irvine’s The Henry Samueli School of Engineering to offer graduating seniors the opportunity to work alongside industry veterans in the design and manufacture of next-generation medical devices.

Collaborating with the Samueli School’s Engineering Design in Industry (EDI) program, Pro-Dex was one of three participating companies in the EDI program this past year. Five senior engineering students worked on a “real-world” engineering challenge as part of Pro-Dex’s development of a new proprietary staple delivery device for use in small bone and extremity surgeries. 

“Forging industry-university relations and the chance for graduating students to meet and work with engineers and program managers from local companies on a weekly basis is the key to this program’s success,” says Dr. John Garman, EDI manager, recruiter and instructor. “I think it’s safe to say no other course offered in the mechanical and aerospace engineering department has a higher rate of student job placement – this is our metric for excellence.”

Pro-Dex Vice President of Engineering, Sid Desai, comments, “Working with future leaders and innovators in design and manufacturing is key to Pro-Dex’s long-term strategy for growth.” Desai added, “UCI Engineering is renowned for its talented and innovative engineering alumni. Our team was continually impressed with the students’ enthusiasm and insight in solving key challenges through the design improvements they suggested for this device.”

The EDI program is a group, project-oriented design class tasked with solving engineering design challenges posed by participating industry partners such as Pro-Dex. Partners participating in the most recent round of projects represented industries ranging from consumer products to medical devices. Each participating company provided its design challenge, and interfaced with faculty and students to develop an improved product. With 10 weeks to complete the project, students worked on-site with the industry partners providing input on key project elements such as material selection, design for manufacturing changes, and 3-D models of the suggested improvements and solutions. More information on the program and recent industry sponsored projects can be found at https://eee.uci.edu/programs/edi/.