„With Plan B we had a very competent partner at our side.“
Olaf Roggemann, Project Manager at Olympus
Olympus is the world leader in the field of gastrointestinal endoscopy equipment with a market share of around 70%. For the development and production site in Hamburg, Plan B Automation designed and manufactured a new, modular and fully automated production facility for endoscopy sheath tubes in close cooperation with the customer, the first of its kind in the world. This means that Olympus is taking on a pioneering role in medical technology.
Conceptual design and construction of a fully automated, modular production line for endoscopy sheath tubes
Compliance with all medically necessary production specifications
Manufacture, installation and commissioning of the system
Conformity with medical technology approval processes
The production of endoscopy sheath tubes for rigid medical endoscopes requires extremely high-precision work. Before full automation, the products were manufactured manually, which entailed a high level of stress and placed high demands on the skills of the employees.
With the automation of sheath tube production, Olympus' vision was turned into a reality of production. The system developed by Plan B represents the new generation of automation. The fully automated system fits perfectly into the digital transformation process of medical technology production thanks to complete data transparency. Together with the customer, we set up and commissioned the production facility in Hamburg at the end of the project.
The extraordinary thing about the project was the particularly high requirements in the manufacturing tolerances in the hundredth of a millimeter range and the pioneering role in automation. The finished production system for the fully automated production of endoscopy cladding tubes is intended for use in 2-shift operation.
The strict requirements of the European Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) must be met. Three interconnected processes are carried out at a total of 10 stations in an optimized time.
The individual stations of the production line are modular and can be approached in any configuration. The stations are controlled on the software side via a central control level, which was optimally configured for the requirements of the system in collaboration with Plan B. The control level also manages a fully automatic buffer area and thus ensures that all products are delivered in the correct order and that there is no unplanned production stop at any time. With RFID chips attached to the tool carrier, all stored process data can be assigned to the individual manufactured parts. This data can be used for analysis to improve production results.
Conformity with all medical requirements
Fully modular production concept with 10 stations
Robot cells with flexible gripping system
Force-torque-controlled robot movements
100% digital tracking and monitoring of all data
Connection to the production network
Sorting and sequencing options for internal buffer storage
Separation and grinding technology with cooling-lubricating agent (KSS)
Tactile measurements in the μm range for quality assurance
Is this solution interesting for your production, or do you have further questions about one of our solutions?
Or you can use our contact form. There you can briefly describe your request and we will then contact you directly.
