For virtually everyone in the U.S., November marks the beginning of winter, shorter days, decreasing temperatures, and Thanksgiving. For those involved with medical device development and manufacturing, it’s also the month for the Medica and CompaMed trade shows in Dusseldorf, Germany. While last year’s event seemed to bring the crowd’s back following the COVID-induced hiatus, this year may be a more true return to form.
 
With this in mind, I reached out to a number of companies who will be exhibiting at the show to find out directly from them what they are showing off or focusing on at the event, what challenges customers have brought them, and where they see their role within the industry in aiding medical device manufacturers. Tackling these questions as well as a couple others, Carey Burkett, vice president at Flexible Circuit Technologies Inc., shared a few insights to help you determine if the firm should be a potential services partner for you in 2024 or beyond.
 
Sean Fenske: What technology or service are you emphasizing at Medica/CompaMed this year?
 
Carey Burkett: Our capabilities in specialty interconnects for medical including flexible circuits, rigid flex, flexible heaters, membrane switches, plastic moldings, and assembly including SMT, product module, and complete medical product box builds.
 
Fenske: What’s the most common challenge customers inquire about and how do you address it?
 
Burkett: Trends including miniaturization, mobility, wearables, challenging form factors, and more are forcing engineers to use specialty interconnect solutions. The biggest challenge is getting to cost effective designs that will perform in challenging applications—quickly—due to shorter product development cycles. One should work with flexible circuit engineers who offer deep expertise in the materials, material properties, and knowledge of what can and cannot be accomplished, which will guide customers to success.
 
Fenske: If you could give one piece of advice to companies seeking a manufacturing partner before they make a decision, what would it be?
 
Burkett: To get started and collaborate very early during the design process with true experts as this will save significant time and cost in getting a company to the most cost-effective solution that will perform as desired.
 
Fenske: What are the forces driving medical device manufacturers to seek your technology/services over doing it in-house?
 
Burkett: Medical product developers who require specialty interconnect solutions should seek expert support to get to the most cost effective design. Further, given Flexible Circuit Technologies (FCT) produces specialty circuits (including flexible circuits, rigid flex, flexible heaters, and more), which are highly specialized, we produce a technology most medical device companies would not bring in house.
 
With assembly, it can be more cost effective to have a supplier handle aspects such as managing the components and performing the assembly (including SMT) with product module builds and/or to complete product box builds. That is the core competency of the supplier.
 
Fenske: In what ways is your company able to aid in getting a product (project) to market faster?
 
Burkett: It starts with bringing the industry’s top application engineers to our customers. At FCT, each of our senior level engineers offers more than 30 years of experience in the design and fabrication of flexible circuits, rigid flex, and flexible heaters. This allows us to help our customers to get to the final design far more quickly while not having to go through many revisions to get there, saving significant time. With each of these engineers bringing their years of experience to the project, they understand the materials, material properties, what can and cannot be accomplished, and how to get to the end solution more rapidly. They are able to focus on getting our customers to the most cost-effective design that will maintain reliability in the challenging applications in which these technologies are often used.
 
Flexible Circuit Technologies Inc. is located at Medica/Compamed in Hall 8B, Booth/Stand P14.