As Invivo Corporation began to finalize the design of its innovative Luminescence Breast Coil System and Biopsy Device (LBS), Dean Walters, Invivo’s Lead Engineer for the project, began consulting with the engineers of Nicolet Plastics Inc. (NPI). “We’ve worked with NPI for 25 years,” notes Walters, “and experience has shown that it’s best to involve the NPI engineers early in the process because they use their expertise with plastics to optimize product designs, the mold and tooling processes and even materials selection to give us more cost-effective, high-quality options.”

The design of Invivo’s LBS — a device that provides illumination, superior imaging, immobilization and needle guidance for interventional biopsies — was particularly challenging. Not only would the disposable device need to meet the highest sterility standards, it had to have exceptional mechanical strength in order to provide stability, and had to be composed of both biocompatible and flame retardant materials that wouldn’t image during an MRI scan.

Improving designs with product development engineering.

“Some components were designed ahead of time, but NPI reviewed all our specs,” explains Walters. “It’s part of every process we do for a client,” adds Mike Grobe, NPI Project Manager for the BBD program. “We ask our clients’ engineers a series of questions about their product requirements to see what alternative materials and production avenues are open to us. We want to make the process as cost effective as possible, without minimizing the quality of the products — it’s a powerful combination of engineering and product development. The engineers of our clients may not be well-versed in plastics, so our expertise helps them discover alternative designs, materials and production methods they may not be aware of.”

Walters agrees, “Some of the LBS’s more complex tools had side actions, and we had to work with NPI to determine directions of pull. We couldn’t have finished the design without their input.”

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