Case Study: The Acetabular Reamer Project

Taking on a range of custom medical manufacturing projects means that our team at Janco is always presented with new opportunities, ideas, and challenges.

One of the biggest sources of pride for our team is putting our decades of experience and innovation to use helping clients find tangible solutions to issues that arise as they create, design, and package new products.

The Acetabular Reamer

The Project

A start-up company specializing in single-use instrumentation for orthopedic joint reconstruction approached us with a prototype that they needed help packaging. The instrument was a reamer designed to remove necrotic bone from the acetabulum, a deep, cup-shaped structure that includes all three bones of the pelvis and encloses the head of the femur at the hip joint.

The Challenge

The issue with packaging a product like this is that it’s incredibly sharp and needs a durable package to ensure that the instrument remains sterile, with no particulates. Shaped like a hemispherical cheese grater, the instrument presented a unique shape with several sharp surfaces that could create lesions in certain types of packaging.

Our job was to create packaging that would ensure the instrument would remain sterile until its use in an operating room. We worked closely with the clients’ team, taking their design ideas into consideration, and then had our team of engineers put their heads together to create custom packaging that would be reliable and effective.

Our Solution

Blending innovation with manufacturability, we worked off of the original input from the clients while using our own experience to forge a solution that would add value to their product. We decided to thermoform TPU material – the ideal material to ensure that the various sharp edges didn’t particulate and breach the package.

This wasn’t just a one-and-done solution, however. Creating something new involves iterations and our team produced several prototypes with different types of latches designed to ensure that any nurses and doctors handling the instruments would be protected when using them. In all, we created around 10 different sizes varying by around 1mm increments each time.

Eventually, we also settled on using a Tyvek® pouch around the custom thermoformed TPU packaging for additional protection.

The Result

Our clients ended up with custom packaging for a limited launch of their product that was durable, kept the product sterile, and allowed for easy handling by the doctors and nurses while in the operating room.

Through collaboration, innovation, and hard work, we helped produce unique packaging for a product that allowed our clients to distribute an instrument that would go on to be incredibly useful for important medical procedures.

Need innovative packaging for your next manufacturing project?

Reach out to Janco to learn how we can put our decades of experience to use to bring your next manufacturing project to life – no matter how challenging it seems.