Production of micro-catheters for medical applications.

Initial situation before MuProD: - Micro-catheters for medical applications are high value parts (scrap is not possible) - Small lots, personalized parts - Stage output quality correlation - End-Of-Line (EOL) manual control is performed on 100 % of micro-catheters (very time consuming) - Poor process monitoring and control - No in-line black specks detection - Defect percentage = 70% - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MuProD solutions: PRE-PROCESS 1. Extrusion model based on material characterization. 2. Improved control of micro-machining processes. PROCESS 1. Fixture: New design of an adaptive micro-extrusion head for process monitoring and control [loop 1] 2. Inline monitoring: Tube diameter control based on the in-line geometrical characterization (internal and external diameters). [loop 2] 3. In-line visual inspection of black specks based on three cameras POST-PROCESS 1. Geometrical inspection: Tube diameter, shape and material distribution control based on an off-line complete geometrical characterization (diameters, areas, thickness, shape, material distribution) [loop 3] Defect-aware robust scheduling tool.