Iota
Sigma Driving Medical Device Reliability

Although highly efficient medical equipment and electronic control instruments are crucial to save lives, what is equally important is the experience that the medical staff has in using the equipment. Enhanced user experience, in terms of impact strength, a trendy color, or a soft-touch feel, can all contribute to improved compliance and patient safety. Iota Sigma, a UK-based firm, has a history of developing innovative diagnostic enclosures, including custom enclosures, boxes, and equipment housings, for the medical industry. “We have highly experienced engineering experts and state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities that allow us to meet the holistic and unique client needs,” says Ian Stead, Managing Director of Iota. “Understanding the exact specifications and material requirements, we design, manufacture the enclosures, and enhance their visual appeal with our decorating facilities, all in house.” Moreover, the company also offers accessories in the form of switches, displays, and cables, along with the housing product, so clients have to just embed their electronic equipment and start using it. Today, Iota has created a niche for itself with its deep experience and world-class facilities for manufacturing exceptional plastic-molded enclosures for electronic medical devices.

Iota understands that time to market is crucial with innovative medical devices. To that end, the company utilizes technologies such as 3D CAD and CNC for design and rapid prototyping. The company’s craft model development team aids in building advanced prototypes quickly. To deliver more value to clients, Iota partners with approved tool-making firms in the UK and China. “Our tool-making team has the expertise to design anything, from a simple, soft aluminum tool for pre-production or low volumes to very hard, specialized and advanced multi-cavity tools, based on client needs,” highlights Stead.

During the product validation phase, the company’s inhouse engineering team creates sample inspection reports, test results, and capability studies of the products. This is done to ensure the authenticity of the outcomes, not only in terms of the quality and dimension but also the correct volume and cycle times of the pricing and profit margins. Post validation begins the production. The company has specialized machines for optics, like lenses and displays. The largest machine is of 300 tons and can produce components up to 600 grams in weight. Besides, Iota also leverages twin shot technology, which injects two types of polymers in the same process to achieve such features as integral grips or seals and enhance the aesthetics of clients’ products. The company can follow both manual and automation-based production processes depending on the project requirement. “What sets us apart from a standard trade molder is our focus on quality and engineering. Our quality assurance (QA) and engineering teams outnumber our production operatives,” extols Stead.

Iota’s core competency in production is plastic injection molding. For product decoration, the company utilizes an advanced spraying facility for plastics. It also has conductive coating capability for EMC or RFI compliance, soft touch, and scratch-resistant clear coatings. To accomplish the assembly of every component, team Iota creates an assembled enclosure, adding cables, mechanical fixings, and brackets, as well as other mechanical components like displays and LEDs. Power supply can also be added to the enclosure kits to wrap up production capability.

Iota’s offerings have been continuously helping clients from the medical sector to respond to the shortages in PPE kits for health professionals and emergency workers during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, particularly in making face shields. Iota’s rapid-response adapted a widely accepted base design solution where other component manufacturers were already producing some parts. Team Iota engineered the more technical components to suit mass-production techniques such as injection molding to sit alongside 3D printing, die-stamping, and laser-cutting and fabrication, thereby maximizing the production output.

With the urge to create greater client success stories, Iota continues to focus on technology and automation to introduce more innovative solutions in the future.