Ventilation equipment is divided into different types depending on the area of application. The best-known models are emergency or transport respirators, home respirators and intensive care respirators. Intensive care respirators manufactured for long-term treatment are particularly important during the corona crisis and have been in great demand.
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The German Government, therefore, awarded contracts to various German manufacturers for the construction of 20,000 devices to ensure adequate care for all emergency patients. The high number of units and the urgency of the demand pushed both manufacturers and suppliers to their capacity limits.
To obtain high-quality components, the medical equipment manufacturers commissioned experienced German suppliers with their production. Reiter HG Geiger Kunststofftechnik in Hilpoltstein, a member of the Geiger Group, qualified as a system supplier because it was able to produce the required quantities within a very short time.
"With the major order from the German government for the fastest possible delivery of intensive care respirators to overcome the corona crisis, the demand for corresponding components — such as adapters for respiratory gas purification — also rose sharply in our company," explains Eva Söhnlein, managing director of Reiter HG Geiger Kunststofftechnik. "Compared with the previous year, we recorded an increase of up to 400% for individual components".
The production figures were increased within a few days to cope with the demand. Reiter's expertise in various product areas generated an order for wide variety of components. The portfolio of the Franconian company ranges from temperature measuring grommets and fresh gas measuring grommets, which are required in sensor technology for monitoring the patient during the anaesthesia phase, to filling and connection adapters to prevent mix-ups of anaesthetics, to complex valve assemblies for breathing gas control.
"Our components are also used to record measured values and to control and regulate respiratory air flows, which must be permanently monitored, especially for corona patients," reports Söhnlein. "We were able to increase the production of the filigree components to the necessary level in the shortest possible time to support the production of intensive care respirators for corona patients by our clients as best as possible. A well-functioning supply chain was also important here. Components such as seals or springs are purchased by us. Thanks to the many years of good cooperation with our suppliers, we were quickly able to adjust production figures to requirements in this exceptional situation. “
Maintaining high quality standards even under time pressure
The production of the assemblies is a complex process. Each component requires its own injection moulding tool and the ideal production strategy must be determined at an early stage. There are numerous influencing factors here, such as the material, the area of application or the necessary steps for further processing and completion of the assembly.
The complex geometries and tight manufacturing tolerances pose a particular challenge. The possible manufacturing tolerances of purchased components must also be precisely defined in advance and compensated for in the manufacturing process. In addition, depending on the area of application of the components, highly demanding plastics with specific material properties are used in production: the range extends from high-temperature plastics such as polyether ether ketone (PEEK), which exhibits physical properties such as flexural strength and tensile strength even at high temperatures of up to 260 °C, to polyphenylene sulphide (PPS), which has a high chemical resistance. Further materials are polyarylsulphone (PSU) and polyphenylsulphone (PPSU), which have a high hydrolysis stability and thus enable sterilisation of components in autoclaves.
"Despite the enormous pressure caused by the high demand and shortage of existing equipment in hospitals, the products had to meet the highest quality standards," explains Söhnlein. To ensure that the components function smoothly, high-quality standards also apply to all downstream processing steps such as ultrasonic and laser welding, as well as mechanical processing.
The filigree aspect of the individual components and the complexity of the assemblies formed from them means that manual finishing is required in many cases. This applies both to the pre-assembly of small subassemblies and the assembly of entire system modules. The high-quality requirements for the products, which were already valid before the COVID crisis, also necessitate a fully documented functional test of 100% of the produced components using complex automatic testing machines. Both assembly and quality control take place in the cleanroom to ensure the technical cleanliness of the products according to DIN ISO 16232.
"It is particularly important in final assembly to find the right balance between automation and manual work steps. We have combined assembly and workpiece inspection in one work step to avoid production batches of assemblies being overlooked during final acceptance. In this way, we can ensure the high‑quality standard of our products, for example for the manufacture of intensive care respirators," Söhnlein sums up.