Laser Medical Device Engineers:How to Integrate Laser Measurement Faster

You might not need something for months, but when you need it, you need it yesterday.

So the saying goes for start-ups, but I expect it holds true for all companies.

It might have taken you some time to decide whether you need to integrate laser measurement into your device.  Or maybe not.

Either way, when you want it, you want it now.

The problem is, you aren’t just buying off-the-shelf sensors and figuring out where to stick them into your medical device.  You need a custom solution.

Custom solutions take time to design, by definition.

At Ophir, we love custom solutions, but we also know how critical the speed of development is to your time tables.

So here are some instructions – straight from the desk of our OEM sales manager – for speeding up your development time.

Correspondence Time

The biggest time waster is the back and forth of emails.

Here’s an example of an OEM process that is too long:

Customer:             I need a sensor for my medical device.
Ophir:                     Ok, tell me about your laser.
Customer:             It’s 193 nm, 10 W.
Ophir:                     Ok, here’s a sensor.  Do you like it?
Customer:             No, that’s too big.
Ophir:                     Here’s a smaller sensor.  Do you like it?
Customer:             No, it’s RS232.  We need analog.
Ophir:                     Here’s an analog sensor.  Do you like it?

And so on…  You get the idea.

Correspondence Time Saved

So how can we cut this time down (keeping in mind that each back and forth could be taking weeks)?

Customer:             I need a sensor for my medical device.
Ophir:                     Ok, tell me about your laser.  Please include X, Y, Z…
Customer:             Ok: X = x, Y = y, Z = z…
Ophir:                     Here’s a sensor.  Do you like it?
Customer:             Yes, I love it!  How did you know?
Ophir:                     Because you told us exactly what you needed.  Thank you!

So perhaps they’re a little over-enthusiastic, but hey, you would be too if you just shortened your development time by several weeks, if not months.

Although correspondence time and design iterations are the big time-suck, there’s another consideration you should think about that applies specifically to medical devices:

Beware of Red-Tape

Of course, regulation is a necessity when lives are at stake.  Red tape exists for a reason, but it should be taken into account ahead of time.

Imagine for example that you really need a sensor for your Med-Device 2000.  You need one right now (or yesterday).  But you also know that your R&D engineers are almost finished with the new Med-Device 3000.

It’s worth your while to take both devices into consideration when discussing measurement options with Ophir.  This is because any change to the part-list of your device will necessitate some more of that regulatory red-tape.

And while we of course are all for the regulations, who likes red tape?

So the solution is to go through the regulations just once instead of twice.

Say your Med-Device 2000 operates at 2 kW, but you know the 3000 version will go up to 3 kW.  You should consider this when implementing laser measurement into your device, so you can get a solution that will work for both versions.  This way you won’t need a new part later on and you’ll be all-set in terms of regulations.

So, now that you know how to shorten your implementation time…

What are you going to do with all that spare time? 😉

I hope you can spend less time worrying about your laser measurement and more time focusing on your product.

Or maybe you should just take a vacation. 😉

Contact Ophir to integrate laser measurement into your own medical device.

Creative Commons Images via Sean MacEntee and fauxto_digit