Blog

 05/20/13      Our organization, MES, is located near Boston MA and we always have our eyes open looking for partnerships in drug delivery. Drug delivery and medical devices are requiring new products that create tinier, less invasive, fluid-induced, and/or space saving micro devices.  The tiniest parts in an assembly are the enabling components to… Read More »

5/15/13      Micro Engineering Solution’s expertise in the micro manufacturing field enables us to be successful with any scale project, from initial concept to high volume manufacturing. Key areas include micro machining, micro molding and micro assembly. One of the fastest ways to get micro parts in our customer’s hands has traditionally been micro… Read More »

5/14/13    Bio-Resorbable Polymer Micro Molding Presentation in Massachusetts 5/14/13. Drug Delivery Using Slow and Controlled Release Polymers. Reservations required, please eamil John Lamont with SME at JLamont.hsmg@comcast.net. See you there! ~ Donna Bibber   Dust Speck Sized Micro Molded Parts and Features are true Disruptive Technology in Implants and Drug Delivery Devices now and… Read More »

5/1/13    Micro tooling enables micro molding, and machining is extremely critical. Since we don’t currently have a “micro” industry standard to go by, we had to create a rough ASTM standard when we make tooling. Example: the industry standard uses an 8” tensile bar, which doesn’t help us in the MICRO world so we… Read More »

4/24/13    iMicronews has a fascinating article about a micro laboratory that sits directly under the skin! Scientists have developed a prototype micro lab that is embedded under the skin to analyze concentrations of substances in the blood and transmit this information to a receiver which a doctor can view. This could take the place… Read More »

4/10/13   Donna Bibber will be speaking about micro molding thin walled devices at the SME Micro Mfg Conference on April 17, 2013 at 11:30am, followed up with a panel discussion at 1pm. This conference will be at the Hilton Minneapolis at 1001 Marquette Avenue South in Minneapolis, MN. This conference is all about Going Beyond Micro. It… Read More »

4/2/13    Tooling challenges in micro mold making: Parting line match – when putting two halves of a mold together to make a molded part, the parting lines have to be prestine. You can’t have a mismatch creating a “step” in the part. Surface finish – surface finish is extremely important to micro machined components,… Read More »

3/26/13   Donna Bibber will be speaking about micro molding thin walled devices at the SME Micro Mfg Conference on April 17, 2013 at 11:30am, followed up with a panel discussion at 1pm. This conference will be at the Hilton Minneapolis at 1001 Marquette Avenue South in Minneapolis, MN. This conference is all about Going Beyond Micro. It… Read More »

3/19/13   How small can you go with tooling when it comes to micro tooling? When thinking about the design of a tool you need to ask yourself “What does the tool have to look like in order to make the part?” In micro machining we can make an End Mill as small as 0.0001”!… Read More »

3/5/13     Of the products that we have in micro machining, some are machined and some are molded using a micro-machined tool. There is a life cycle curve for these processes. Right at the beginning of this lifecycle curve we have tens of thousands of parts in the R&D stage; in the next cycle the… Read More »

02/13/2013    Manufacturing Engineering Magazine Interview with Donna Bibber, January 2013 issue: Micro components continue to shrink in size demanding ever greater precision and improved handling of parts with sub-micron-sized features. New approaches in micro-machining technology include higher precision systems from traditional micro-machining developers, as well as techniques using additive manufacturing processes semiconductor wafer scale… Read More »

1/28/2013   Below is an article in the Medical Design Magazine October 2012 edition written by Donna Bibber. The body thinks in terms of nanometers and so must drug-delivery devices as nanopositioning advancements redefine this product segment. ARTICLE FOCUS • Methods • Challenges • Global importance Figure 1. MES photo showing wireless devices of the future using… Read More »

1/22/13    An alarming statistic I heard on the radio the other day…… We, as Americans consume nearly 60 BILLION batteries a year. 60 BILLION! If that doesn’t deserve a “there’s gotta be a better way”, I don’t know what does. In our micro manufacturing world of electronics, micro molded medical devices that monitor, measure,… Read More »

1/16/13      Micro Engineering Solutions is an expert in the field of micro machining. Our product development has included silicone valves, transdermal patches, insulin delivery pump assemblies and a variety of micro implants. View our micro machining video for more details.

1/4/13   With 2012 behind us we wanted to review the interesting and informative blogs we have written over the past year. They are full of useful information and videos and deserve repeating! Please click on any of the below blog titles to see the blog. MICRO MOLDING: - Micro Computational Analysis - Micro Tooling - Micro Molding Intraocular Implants… Read More »

1/2/13   When it comes to bioengineering, microfeatures in polymer parts are used to control the biological activity of cells, letting us analyze their mechanical behavior with its surround environment. Cells can turn a mechanical cue into an internal chemical signal to initiate migration. We are able to provide cell therapy due to this control on… Read More »

12/26/12   Micro Engineering Solutions has expertise in micro machining, micro molding and micro assembly. Today we will focus on micro machining. Micro machining encompasses R&D for products, high production growth and mature products. Some of the components we have worked on in these categories include resorbable polymer implants, ophthalmic implants and lenses, suture devices, implantable… Read More »

12-17-12   Below is an article from SmallBizLabs.com that we as a small company found very interesting. Even though Micro Engineering Solutions doesn’t have a large number of employees, we bring great expertise to the table. Being small enables us to act quickly and turn things around in a timely manner. There is no red… Read More »

12/4/12     Checkout this interesting write-up by the Optical Society regarding a micro fabrication tool that can move microscopic particles- down to the cellular level!   The future looks fabulous when we can see the technology moving from our current top down methods of micro machining to bottom up methods such as described in this article. … Read More »

11/26/12     Micro molding is an exciting field to work in. You are working with cutting edge technology to create products that have never been made before! The medical field is one of the major fields that is using this technology to increase human comfort and speed up recovery time. Some examples of Micro… Read More »

11/19/12   Ct Scanning (X-Ray Scanning) has come a long way in the last few years. This technology was originally developed for use in healthcare facilities whereby a person lays flat on a table while a CT scans specific parts of the body, however CT scanning is now being used for inspecting ultra-high precision micro… Read More »

11/12/12:    Micro Molding in bio-resorbable PLA and PGA materials creates challenges with small gate sizes for these highly shear sensitive and highly moisture sensitive materials, such as shear stress through small gates, humidity control for extremely small shot sizes, and integrating macro to micro technologies to produce near micron level geometry in precision, micro… Read More »

10/29/12    It is amazing the technology we have nowadays in the medical field. MES has been involved with engineering and machining a part that is used in cartilage repair. These silicone molded valves are smaller than a piece of dust! We are able to put 84 million parts on 1 microscope slide! To the… Read More »

10/23/12:   Who would think that micro devices being developed today would enable: • A visually impaired person to see • A paralyzed person to feed herself • A deaf toddler to hear his mother’s voice for the first time These devices are here and now and are all possible due to the neurological implants… Read More »

10/9/12     What a phenomenal conference with several interesting topics of interest in drug delivery.   Dr. Bob Langer of M.I.T. led off the event and from my perspective his overview of the industry was loaded with micro components and assemblies, hitting delivery mechanisms such as: Transdermal Delivery- Needles, Drug Arrays Ocular Delivery- Nano particles… Read More »

9/24/12:   PolyLactic Acid (PLA) Polymers and poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) copolymers are quickly becoming popular materials that carry, deliver, or implant devices into the body.   These materials are creating tiny sized camera cases, drug delivery vessels, and dissolving components in a critically controlled timely manner for the treatment of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, glaucoma, COPD, pain… Read More »

9/17/12:   A single dose powder inhaler is pilot-production and ripe for an active partner to bring it to market.  Introducing DoseOne™, a single dose powder inhaler that is already prototyped, tested, recently benchmarked, and ready for pilot production and a partner to move it forward.  The design is SO simple it’s something that makes… Read More »

9/10/12   Pharmaceutical and medical device companies are expanding into microelectronics for drug delivery and implantable therapies. The value in micro devices are far reaching to treat many chronic debilitating conditions such as muscle stimulation for overworked muscles, transcranial stimulation  to alter brain activity, and nerve stimulation for pain management. Micro molding, micro machining, and micro assembly are… Read More »

9/4/12:     Micro molded Needles and Sharps are getting attention these days due to their many advantages including; disposability, recyclability, ease of use, and cost effectiveness. They are being used in applications such as cost-effective vaccine delivery, glucose monitoring and insulin delivery devices, transdermal wearable drug patches, and automatic blister or capsule drug puncturing… Read More »

8/27/12:  Throw caution to the wind on your old machining cost models when it comes to micro machining PEEK polymers.  PEEK machined parts require careful planning of material waste from rod or sheet stock and utilizing every square millimeter of material.   Raw material implant grade PEEK costs range from $70–$400/lb (much higher if processed with… Read More »

8/20/12: Drug Delivery Devices are getting smaller and smaller and micro molding and micro machining are useful processes to produce state of the art disposable point of care and wearable devices.  These products include transdermal patches, infusion pumps, powder inhalers, intraocular implants, and bio-resorbable polymer devices; slow or quick release. These devices, most microfluidic in… Read More »

8/13/12:   Micro Molding in bio-resorbable PLA and PGA materials creates challenges with small gate sizes for these highly shear sensitive and highly moisture sensitive materials.  Donna Bibber wrote an article which dives into some of these challenges such as shear stress through small gates, humidity control for extremely small shot sizes, and integrating macro to… Read More »

8/6/12: In today’s world smaller is better, in the medical world small (or better yet – micro) is cutting edge technology that is less intrusive and more accurate and precise. Micro Engineering Solutions plays a vital role in aiding the medical field with its micro machining and micro molding expertise. The UK is also using… Read More »

7/31/12: In previous papers we have discussed micro molding and micro machining in a variety of materials (thermoplastic, glass, metal, silicone). These molded, machined, etched, lasered, EDMed or formed components may be stand alone tiny parts but most times they are not stand alone, they are part of a micro device requiring some micro assembly…. Read More »

7/24/12: Micro Molding is exciting as it is enabling many new medical and pharmaceutical devices of the future. Because of our ultra precision surface finish abilities, we have a particular expertise and interest in ophthalmic and intraocular implants but we don’t get a chance to work on all of them of course. Restoring sight- is… Read More »

05/14/2012: The preparation done to micro components at the design stage carries through all the way to automated assembly.  Because the tolerances are critical and diminishing to microns and sub-microns, the stack-up tolerances of the micro components and their design criteria are scrutinized and their method of manufacturing are also considered for long-term production.  The… Read More »

05/01/2012: When the design and material is nailed down to the point of spending capital to test the components, put them in the hands of investors, customers, and surgeons, it’s time for a micro mold to be made.  With any micro molding technology (thermoplastic, silicone, or metal), the tooling is THE most critical component to… Read More »

4/16/2012: A first look at device and assemblies of this critical nature, we must first take a long look at the solid models and perform computational analysis on their design.  Because micro molds and initial parts can be costly in their development cycle, micro mold flow analysis provides an insurance policy that a particular design… Read More »