Emerson Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

Single-use technologies gain wide adoption in biomanufacturing

The G3 Electronic Fieldbus Platform complements Emerson’s AVENTICSSeries 501 Pneumatic Valve Manifold. The graphic display for configuration and diagnostics is compatible with various communication protocols, such as Ethernet IP, ProfiNet and DeviceNet. Photo courtesy of Emerson.

With the rise of biologics and personalized medicine, the biopharmaceutical industry is adding single-use technologies (SUTs) to their manufacturing options. Manufacturers are realizing the benefits of being agile, and many are adopting SUTs to turn over smaller batches of new products quickly and efficiently. Single-use technologies use disposable bioprocessing equipment, such as bags and flexible tubing, instead of conventional, permanent stainless steel systems. By eliminating the time-consuming clean-in-place (CIP) and steam-in-place (SIP) processes between batches, SUTs speed up the changeover time and greatly reduce the costs of ener…

Emerson launches integrated manifold for respiratory devices

NEWS RELEASE: Emerson Introduces Healthcare Industry’s First Integrated Manifold Solution for Respiratory Therapy Devices

Emerson’s ASCO Series 588 Stationary Oxygen Concentrator Manifold [Photo courtesy of Emerson]

Emerson has launched the ASCO™ Series 588 Stationary Oxygen Concentrator Manifold, the healthcare industry’s first turnkey manifold solution designed to optimize respiratory therapy device designs and accelerate product speed to market.

Oxygen concentrators must quickly reach patients who rely on them, so it’s critical that they are readily available and operate reliably. The Series 588 manifold is specially designed to simplify device engineering and assembly and improve device energy efficiency, lifespan and reliability.

Without an integrated manifold, manufacturers must mount valves individually into the fluidic path of oxygen concentrators and attach dedicated tubing to each …

Control valves for home care medical devices must become more efficient

Device OEMs can meet fast-growing demand by combining the flexibility of new and proven flow-control products with supplier expertise.

By Paul Gant, ASCO Analytical and Medical at Emerson

A portable oxygen concentrator manifold solution with a credit card for scale [Photo courtesy of Emerson]

The trend to design capable medical devices for home and mobile care is not new, and most medical device manufacturers have made robust investments in this growing market. Portability and ease of use are key areas of development, and component and control solutions manufacturers must innovate to keep up with demand.

Medical devices such as oxygen concentrators, compression therapy devices, therapeutic support surfaces, and dialysis equipment utilize solenoid valves to automate control of the equipment. These devices must meet the requirements of the governing authorities — including the FDA and European Union Medic…

Life sciences single-use instrumentation trends

Figure 1: For better flexibility to produce a wider variety of targeted drugs, especially biologics, life sciences manufacturers are moving toward single-use options for operating both batch and continuous processing equipment.

Single-use instrumentation, especially new pH sensors designed for upstream and downstream applications, are helping manufacturers develop production suites for creating a greater variety of small-run yet highly targeted drugs.

Life sciences manufacturers already incorporate leading measurement and automation technologies to ensure the quality of the drugs and medicines they bring to market. Yet because the life sciences industry and associated products are evolving in many ways, it remains important for both manufacturers and OEMs to evaluate updated measurement and automation technologies to meet new needs.

In most industries, scaling up is the path forward to gain production efficiencies, with large batc…

Emerson debuts software for CIP applications

[Image courtesy of Emerson]

Emerson (NYSE:EMR) has launched its new Clean In Place (CIP) Utilities and Automated Reporting Analytics package on its PACEdge and Movicon platforms on an industrial edge control device.

The food and beverage, and pharmaceutical industries use the clean- and steam-in-place method to clean fittings, vessels, filters, pipes and other internal surfaces without disassembly.

According to the company, the software can help industrial companies digitally transform manual and semi-automated systems by reducing utility consumption and energy use while also generating automated reports to enhance operations. The software can also help optimize process manufacturing by benchmarking against known cycles. In addition, it can help process manufacturers forecast energy use as well as water and resource consumption.

The new software is also designed to provide actionable data and an…

Emerson introduces new three-way miniature solenoid valve

The new ASCO Series 090 three-way miniature solenoid valve [Image courtesy of Emerson]

Emerson (NYSE:EMR) announced the expansion of its ASCO Series 090 line of miniature solenoid valves.

The product line includes a new three-way Series 090 valve configuration. The three-way configuration enables lighter, more space-efficient solutions for gas control in oxygen therapy, compression therapy and gas analyzer devices, St. Louis–based Emerson said in a news release posted yesterday.

Originally developed as a two-way valve for air and inert gases in portable medical devices, the Series 090 valve features a compact architecture, small (10.8 mm footprint and 50-million-cycle life.

Because the Series 090 valve’s new three-way configuration can perform the same mixing and diverting functions as a pair of two-way valves, it provides more design flexibility for high-precision gas delivery systems for o…

Ultrasonically welded flow sensor critical to success of Hamilton Medical ventilator design

The body of the Hamilton Medical proximal flow sensor consists of two molded halves composed of medical-grade plastic. [Photo courtesy of Hamilton Medical] The disposable sensor monitors ventilation of critically ill patients with high precision.

Didier Perret, Emerson

Hamilton Medical (Bonaduz, Switzerland) produces intelligent ventilation solutions for intensive-care units and critical-care transports. To meet the exploding demand for ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hamilton Medical established a new ventilator production site in Reno, Nevada, with the support of a local team from General Motors.

In four months, the facility moved from bare floor to full production, delivering the first of thousands of Hamilton-T1 ventilators purchased under contract by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in September 2020.

Get the full story at our sister site, Medical Design & Outsourcing.

Ultrasonically welded flow sensor critical to success of Hamilton Medical ventilator design

The body of the Hamilton Medical proximal flow sensor consists of two molded halves composed of medical-grade plastic. Between the two halves, a ring-shaped insert holds a delicate membrane with a variable orifice that detects changes in air direction and flow within the patient airway, transmitting inhalation/exhalation inputs to the ventilator digital control through two small tubes linked to the ports at center right. These inputs are used to minutely regulate air pressure and flow in real time. [Photo courtesy of Hamilton Medical]

The disposable sensor monitors ventilation of critically ill patients with high precision.

Didier Perret, Emerson

Hamilton Medical (Bonaduz, Switzerland) produces intelligent ventilation solutions for intensive-care units and critical-care transports. To meet the exploding demand for ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hamilton Medical established a new ventilator produ…

Equipment reliability is key to operational integrity in life sciences manufacturing

It’s difficult for a company to achieve excellence when batches are lost and maintenance crews must fight fires due to equipment failure. Still, solutions are available now to address these and other issues in the pharmaceutical industry.

Most life sciences plants and facilities face many issues impacting reliability, throughput, and uptime. For example, a bioreactor’s agitator slows down during a batch process without the operator realizing it, and the result is a quarantined batch and production schedule delay while it’s addressed.

In another common scenario, a unit’s control system says the pH of a given batch has moved out of its tolerance range, but plant personnel cannot quickly determine if it is due to a process upset or a malfunctioning sensor. Grab samples must be analyzed in the lab to verify, delaying production.

Or a pump used to empty a bioreactor at a critical time is malfunctioning. It may be a problem with the variable frequency drive, m…

Plastics and medical devices: Changes for safety and cost

The move toward polypropylene and polyethylene in medical devices requires new manufacturing and assembly solutions such as ultrasonic and laser welding.

Didier Perret, Emerson

Emerson’s Branson GSX Ultrasonic Welding Platform [Photo courtesy of Emerson]

Plastics are ubiquitous in medical applications thanks to their light weight, durability and flexibility, among other attributes. However, concern has been increasing in recent years about the possible negative effects of some ingredients and components in certain plastics. This is leading medical-device companies to research and use other resins or combinations of plastics without the same risks. However, they do not have the same processing characteristic, and the changes often require companies to implement new production processes, especially around assembly and joining technologies.

For instance, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is used in 40% of all …

Emerson introduces new miniature rocker isolation valve for clinical lab instruments

Emerson ASCO Series 062 rocker isolation valves [Photo courtesy of Emerson]

Emerson (NYSE:EMR) has launched the ASCO Series 062 rocker isolation valve, designed for hematology and immunoassay analyzers, sample preparation and pre-analytical, as well as DNA sequencing instruments.

The St. Louis, Missouri-based company said the two-way and three-way valves are compact at 16mm, allowing for easy integration into complex fluid-handling manifolds while reducing their footprint, weight and power needs.

“The new ASCO Series 062 valves offer reliable and precise fluid control in a wide variety of analytical instrumentation and medical device applications,” Sven Richter, VP of analytical and medical at Emerson’s Automation Solutions business, said in a news release. “We understand that our original equipment manufacturer customers are under pressure to get products to market quickly, while improving production an…

These technologies are speeding COVID-19 vaccines to market

Scientist working with a bioreactor for cell culture. Pharma manufacturing requires digitalization for best results, according to experts at Emerson. [Image courtesy of Emerson]

A combination of digital tools, improved production equipment, and advanced instrumentation helped COVID-19 vaccines to roll out in record time.

Ben Arriola and Zach Blum, Emerson

There is little doubt that researchers will study the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects from countless angles in the decades to come. Few events in modern times have had such global consequences, and the changes are far from over.

The most positive element of the story has been the speed with which many research organizations and pharmaceutical companies developed vaccines to prevent COVID-19. Usually, vaccines take years to develop and test. One of the latest examples of development from scratch was the mumps vaccine in the 1960s. It took four…