Coronavirus “wake-up call” will strengthen UK medical moulding sector says Witttmann Battenfeld MD

The demand for medical equipment and devices in the UK as a result of the Coronavirus is a “wake-up call” that presents an opportunity to strengthen the country’s supply and manufacture of such items, says the Managing Director of Wittmann Battenfeld UK.

Tracy Cadman, who jointly heads up the company alongside Daniel Williams, believes that once the first wave of the Covid-19 crisis passes, the UK contract-moulding sector will increasingly be involved in med-tech and healthcare manufacture and supply.

“‘In the UK we find ourselves in the middle of a ‘wake up’ call on so many fronts – not least in procurement; the need to shorten the supply chain and time taken to bring devices to market,” she explained.  

“By any score, the UK’s moulding sector has performed very well throughout the pandemic. These new supplier-customer bonds need to last and must be fostered and strengthened for the future.”

Wittmann Battenfeld UK is primed to supply cleanroom-ready injection moulding machines and all related ancillaries for med-tech device production.  A number of its existing customers have found themselves in the thick of the UK’s healthcare storm.

One example is White Horse Plastics (WHP), based in Oxfordshire, a company with expertise in tight tolerance technical injection moulding.

Its current new demands include the manufacture of FeNO (Fractional exhaled Nitric Oxide) mouth-piece assemblies used to assist the diagnosis of asthma and other lung diseases, micro centrifugal test columns and the development of PPE equipment.

The firm says the complex development process involved in producing specialist medical components has come as a surprise to some of its newest customers, who have had to be educated in the steps involved in producing the components they need so desperately that are simply not waiting on shelves.

Paul Bobby, WHP Managing Director, said that the process for producing medical and healthcare devices in this emergency “typically begins with a much-streamlined version of our WHP design-for-manufacture principles.”

This process, he added, is faster than pre-pandemic production, but it is still a long time for those hoping for immediate supply on the front line.

“There is a lot of data here for new specifiers and procurers to absorb in a very short time,” he explained, “and particularly in a crisis – but thus far we are meeting our deadlines and getting the job done.

“I seriously hope that going forward the market will seriously review its supply chain strategy and will take care to source more product closer to home.”