Blood Gas Monitor
- ID liaison
- mechanical design
- component engineering
- DFM
Product Spotlight
When 3M Health Care, CDI Products embarked on the design of their fifth generation continuous bypass instrument, they hired IDEO Product Devlopment of Palo Alto to lead the industrial and mechanical design effort. Due to the scope and complexity of the project, Don Graham of Piton was asked to act as a liaison between CDI and IDEO.
The "System 500" monitors patient blood parameters during open heart surgery. It allows the perfusionist continuous feedback of eleven blood values with accuracy comparable to laboratory analyzers. Sensor heads, which dock on the side of the Monitor when not in use, snap onto the bypass circuit and sense blood gases through fluorescence technology.
The scope of the mechanical design effort included industrial design, ergonomics, manufacturability, assembly, and field upgradeability. Components were designed as machined, stamped, sheetmetal, weldments, die-cut, injection molded, compression molded, insert and over molded, UV and adhesive bonded, extruded, and sand cast parts. The injection molded parts alone required 13 cavities in 11 mold bases.
Other electronic packaging techniques included electroless nickel plating, EMC/ENVR gasketing, custom cable manufacturing, riveting, ultrasonic welding of inserts, thread forming fasteners, press & snap fits, custom flat springs, vacuum deposition, silicone hard coating, mixed chem-film/anodized plating, and computer measurement analysis.
Piton's interfacing role with IDEO allowed CDI engineers, chemists, and physicists to focus on optics, sensor chemistries, electrical design, and software. This team approach led to the successful launch of the flagship product in 1998 and the 1999 Medical Design Excellence Award.