Latest News UNICUT PROVIDES MANUFACTURING SOLUTION FOR NEEDLE-LESS INSULIN INJECTION Go back Following some three years of extensive prototype development with the customer on needleless drug administration technology, that enables precisely measured shots of insulin to pass through the pores of the skin, Unicut Precision of Welwyn Garden City has been awarded a prestigious contract from a Dutch company to produce an initial 10,000 sets of the 12 part assembly worth more than £230,000. Maintains Charles Kenny, joint managing director: “This project has taken a lot of effort to perfect the process and we have been working very closely with the development laboratory of the customer to supply test parts. We have also been intimately involved in recommending how different methods of machining can increase consistency of operation within the assembly as well as influencing the manufactured price of the product.” The components range from the smallest that is 1.5 mm diameter by 15 mm long up to 24 mm diameter by 110 mm long and have certain tolerances that have to be within + 0.005 mm. The parts are made from a variety of materials such as stainless and S1 tool steels, titanium, aluminium and plastics. Certain parts have to be heat treated, bead blasted and hard anodised while others require silk screen printing as part of the contract. Also as part of the process development ready for final machining, Unicut had to account for different thickness of coating layer on features such as grooves, recesses and bores as well as diameters to ensure the hard anodised finish met the final tolerances demanded for the exacting and precise operation of the device. Within the machining cycle on one complex component, Unicut has to ensure the positioning of thread pitch line starts, have to be relative to slots at the other end of the component within 0.5o in order to enable the user to precisely set the dosage of insulin. There is also a very highly accurate milled cam profile that has to be precisely machined within the single cycle operation in order to ‘fire’ the drug through pores of the skin. Explains joint managing director Jason Nicholson: “With the capability of our Citizen sliding head lathes and Miyano fixed-head turn-mill centres we are able to machine each part in a single cycle. We have been able to eliminate any need for grinding while our non-contact automated measuring system and programmable component cleaning system ensures the highest level of quality is maintained for such an important medical product.