Center of Medical Devices and Additive Manufacturing

The department of Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Design Technology (MEIDT) at New York City College of Technology the senior college of the City University of New York is seeking to strengthen the skills of its graduates in manufacturing and design to respond to the urgent needs of the manufacturing industry nationwide and to provide a national model for advanced engineering technology education. Many manufacturers complain of lack of technical skills of most engineering graduates. Aerospace and medical devices are suffering the most according to recent reports.

The CMDAM focuses on:

    1. Strengthening the skills of students in design and manufacturing through hands on training, certification training, and high quality workshops by experts in the fields
    2. Provide the students the opportunity to work on real projects in medical and prosthetic devices that will impact peoples life
    3. Establish a channel to foster collaboration between academia, industry, health facilities, community organizations and communities and individual in need for medical devices. This collaboration will promote entrepreneurship and invention.

Tools:
Students will gain high proficiency in

    • Computer Aided Design (CAD) packages such as AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, and Solid Works.
    • Computer Aided Manufacturing such as Master CAM.
    • Medical Imaging Software, Mimics Suite ( Mimics and 3-Matic)
    • Advance manufacturing processes using state-of-the-art subtractive manufacturing, milling, and additive manufacturing machines.

Current Collaborators:

    • Division of Medical Devices at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York
    • Materials Processing Division in NASA Langley Research Center in VA
    • North Carolina State University
    • NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS)

We are looking forward to have more collaborators.

Funding:
Current Funding for the Center is from

    1. National Science Foundation (NSF)
    2. NASA

Teams:

    1. Medical Devices Design and Fabrication
    2. Mechatronics in Medical Devices
    3. Business and Dentistry
    4. K-12
    5. NASA Additive Manufacturing

Professors, students, and professionals are encourage to join these teams and work with them even remotely.

MEDICAL DEVICES

(a) Surgical and Medical Instruments
(b) Surgical Appliances and Supplies
(c) Dental Equipment and Supplies

Project Abstract:

(1) Clubfoot Braces
(2) Bionic and Prosthetic Hands
(3) Surgical Loupes

Research Abstracts:

(1) Research on Bio-Signal Signal Processing and Filter Abstract
(2) Arduino Controlled 3D Printed Prosthetic Hand Prototype
(3) Medical IoT Network
(4) Modern Prosthetic Arm

(a)  Availability of great job opportunities in the manufacturing sector in general and the medical device industry in particular:

According to the 2013 New York Manufacturers Register, an industrial directory published annually by Manufacturers News Inc. (MNI), New York State is now home to 16,922 manufacturers who employ 733,548 workers. Several manufacturers operating in New York reported expansion over the last year and more companies are moving in. The Brooklyn Navy Yard (BNY) Industrial Park is within ten minutes walking distance from City Tech. The Navy Yard complex is a home for over 300 companies in different fields with tens of them in manufacturing and design. The industrial park is managed by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) which has close ties with City Tech Professional Development Center offering paid internship opportunities to engineering students during the academic year. In addition to that, neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut are home for bigger manufacturing corporations (within a radius of 100 miles) such as Johnson and Johnson, Stryker and others. Furthermore, the US. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global business strategy firm, predicted in 2011 that within 2011 – 2016, the US is expected to experience a manufacturing renaissance as the wage gap with China shrinks and certain U.S. states become some of the cheapest locations for manufacturing in the developed world. In a more recent report (2013), BCG reported that more than half of executives at manufacturing companies with sales of more than $1 billion plan to return some production to the United States from China or are considering it. Byron Pits reported in his “ CBS 60 Minutes ” TV episode in 2012 that there that there are more than 500,000 jobs in manufacturing waiting to be filled1. Some recent reports estimated the number to be more than 358,000 jobs.

1Three million open jobs but who is qualified? www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50134943n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel

In the medical device industry, the United States remains the largest medical device market in the world with a market size of around $110 billion, and it is expected to reach $133 billion by 2016. The U.S. market value represented about 38 percent of the global medical device market in 2012. There are more than 6,500 medical device companies in the U.S., mostly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Medical device companies are located throughout the country, the states with the highest number of medical device companies include California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Michigan. It is very imperative to see that three of these states are on the east coast of the USA.

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(b)  Lack of skilled manufacturing technicians especially in the Medical Devices Industry:

Many manufacturers complain of lack of skilled technicians. Employers say they can’t find qualified workers because of “The Skill Gap.” The skill gap refers to graduates’ lack of specific job-related skills necessary to step into an entry level manufacturing position. Almost one third of U.S. manufacturing companies responding to a recent survey say they are suffering from some level of skills shortages. Aerospace and medical devices are suffering the most with a need of 65%[19]. In the medical device industry, more than half of the leading global medical device companies are based in the United States, employing more than 400,000 Americans. It’s also one of the few US manufacturing industries to consistently export more than it imports. However, with all its strengths, the sector faces some serious weaknesses — especially when it comes to human talent.