an engineer and machinist, maintains close contact with the company’s medical device OEM customers and surgeons to continuously create new and improved tools that work more efficiently and are easier to use by surgeons and easier on their patients.
"We knew the complex geometries of
our surgical tools and devices required a machine with five-axis capability."
Oak View Tool’s product line includes surgical rasps, ream-
ers, and broaches, tools all used to cut or remove human bone as part of the preparation for installing orthopedic implants. The shop will develop a new tool or enhance an existing design, then produce a couple hundred for testing. However, more customers are having Oak View Tool also run production, which means the shop is now averaging about 110–120 jobs per month that can entail 1–5000 pieces per order.
SUPPORTS. STOPS. PLATES... AND MORE. With approximately 15 CNC machine tools and 25 employ-
ees, the ISO 9000 and 13485:2003-certified shop does all the machining in-house necessary to produce its surgical tools. Pro- cesses include five-axis milling, turning, drilling, five-axis grind- ing and inspection. And while no machining work is outsourced these days, that wasn’t always the case at Oak View Tool. In 1996, Oak View Tool started as a regrind shop specializ-
ing in carbide cutting tools and eventually took on the challeng- ing task of also grinding stainless steel. These two materials are now the only two the shop currently works with. Eventually, many medical OEM customers requested that the shop also do the machining work, which Oak View Tool would then outsource to local shops, keeping only the grinding work in-house. As business increased, Dahms considered bringing all outsourced machining work back in-house. Not only would doing so improve the shop’s profitability, but, most important, it would help maintain and further improve upon the high quality and integrity of the surgical tools and devices the shop produces. In 2010, the decision was definite when Dahms saw the capabilities of the five-axis Integrex 200-IV S Multi- Tasking machine from Mazak Corp. (Florence, KY).
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stops, blocks and plates. The supports and stops, available in a variety of sizes and styles, provide work piece support and positioning to help prevent chatter and deflection. Plates and tombstones are also available in a variety of sizes and configurations including blank, grid, angled, two-sided and four-sided. Fixtureworks is your source for a wide variety of clamps, fixturing accessories and machine tool components.
Machining a hip broach on the Mazak Integrex 200 IV S has substantially reduced the number of operations to complete the medical device.
He realized that this one machine would accommodate all the returning outsourced work and perform the shop’s hard- machining operations. All stainless steel and carbide parts are cut in an Rc 40–45 hardened state. The Mazak machine provides the speed, torque, rigidity, accuracy and significant machine mass for hard machining that is often lacking in basic level machines on the market. “We considered a Swiss-style lathe, but that type of machine would have limited us in terms of part process-