Medical Industry:
In recent years, the global medical device industry,
valued at $100 million, has grown exponentially. During
the 1980’s foreign markets (i.e. Western Europe, Asia
and Latin America) accounted for less than 25% of the total
market. Today, they account for 60%.
The US, the largest market valued at $43
billion, is growing at an annual rate of 9%. The increased
demand is influenced by an increasing patient population
and the focus shifting to health care containment and preventative
therapies.
As technology has advanced, medical device
components have become smaller and smaller with the emphasis
on acute precision. As a result, new processes have been
developed to produce these devices.
One important innovation has been the thread
rolling process. In fact many tensile and safety critical
components, such as medical, dental and aerospace industries,
demand a rolled thread for its high strength properties
and no other threading method is accepted.
This simple cold-forming operation enables
engineers to produce threaded fasteners and components to
the most exacting standards with ease and repeatability
on a wide range of materials. The thread rolling process
is now widely acknowledged as the fastest and most efficient
method of producing accurate external threads, with surface
finish and mechanical properties unobtainable by any other
method.
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