Future medical production technology
Sensocure, Medistim, and GE Vingmed Ultrasound have been granted project funding from the BIA Health program by the Research Council of Norway. The project is one of three projects that have been successful in the competition for support, with the project titled "Advanced Manufacturing Technologies for High Impact Medical Devices." The project will be carried out in technology companies from Horten in collaboration with institutions such as the University College of Southeast Norway (Høgskolen i Sørøst Norge) and research institutions SINTEF and NORNER. Sensocure, GE Vingmed Ultrasound, and Medistim are all companies that have established production for their own medical technical products in Vestfold, and through preliminary projects supported by NFR BIA Health, they have assessed needs and conducted concept studies for future production technologies.
The collaboration aims to develop new and smart manufacturing technologies to enable cost-effective production of advanced medical equipment in the future as well. Norway has previously succeeded in creating globally competitive manufacturers of complex medical equipment in areas where design, development, and production are based on advanced knowledge, competence, and skills.
"The results from the project could contribute to retaining and increasing the attractiveness of Norway as a location for the development, production, and delivery of medical technology," says Technical Director Stein Ivar Hansen at Sensocure.
Trond Herje, CEO of Sensocure, states, "This is a very exciting project for Sensocure, and we are very pleased that we can undertake such a project together with GE Vingmed and Medistim as partners in the project. The project funding from the Research Council of Norway enables a significant effort in a very important area, and Sensocure has high expectations that during this three-year project period, we will find answers to many of the questions we have related to production technology."
Erik Swensen, VP R&D at Medistim, says, "Medistim sees the allocation as a unique opportunity to develop new production technology that can significantly elevate today's production of probes in terms of efficiency and quality. For a company with labor-intensive production in Norway, this could mean a significant strengthening of competitiveness in a global market. The collaboration we have established with GE Vingmed and Sensocure through preliminary project and application processes is seen as a very good platform to strengthen the environment for medical production technology in the region in the long term."
"Many of our production processes in Horten are of a manual nature and require high precision. This leads to process variation and quality challenges in production, which in turn increase production costs. By developing solutions using collaborative robotics, smart jigs, adhesive dispensing technology, and augmented reality, we can solve many of our challenges and increase our competitiveness," says Christian Holm Edvardsen, Project Manager at GE Vingmed Ultrasound.
