Simplify tooling, deliver productivity

Guided by the motto, “Simplify tooling to deliver productivity,” St. Henry, Ohio-based Tru-Edge has long been a leader in manufacturing and re-sharpening custom crafted round tools in several industries, including aerospace and automotive. Success in these industries stems from the company’s expertise in tight-tolerance carbide grinding, an experienced tool design team, and a technical sales staff that knows how to solve problems at the spindle. While they’ve carried on this tradition since 1996, they added a new capability in 2007.

That year, several big orthopedic customers in the Warsaw, Indiana area contracted with Tru-Edge to produce hip broaches, bone rasps, bone graft drills, reamers, and taps – which are all typically stainless-steel tools with entirely different geometries than the metal cutting tools they were accustomed to manufacturing. The team embraced the challenge and made it a key part of Tru-Edge’s business, earning ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 certification and adapting to customers’ changing demands in the years that followed. Vice President Brian Hackman reported that surgical instruments now represent 10% of their total sales, even as the company continues to grow rapidly.

Sticking with ANCA machines

From the beginning, ANCA tool grinders represented Tru-Edge’s primary production equipment, and the inherent flexibility of the machines made them a perfect fit for the new line of business. Hackman recounted that for the first 14 years or so, the contracts mostly called for reusable instruments, with the ultimate customer being major hospitals that had the ability to sterilize the instruments.

“They wanted the tools to be as visually appealing as they could possibly be,” Hackman says, and Tru-Edge produced tools with “a jewel-like appearance, due to the highly polished surface finish and complex geometries. The different facets and reliefs we would grind in them would literally sparkle.” By optimizing wheels, plus the speeds and feeds on their ANCA TX, MX, and FX machines, Hackman says Tru-Edge can deliver a burr-free finish, virtually eliminating the need for post-processing. This contributed to even more business and an award from the regional manufacturing association in 2018.

Hackman credited their success to innovations in ANCA’s Toolroom software and the incorporation of linear motors. Rick Brunswick, engineering manager at Tru-Edge, points to ANCA’s in-process wheel dressing capabilities as a key ingredient to maintaining tight form tolerances, especially on medical taps, reducing cycle time and the number of operations. They favor ANCA’s approach to outfitting a machine with a large (250mm) dressing roll around the work head, rather than the optional side-mounted dresser. “It lasts much longer, because you have more surface area on that diamond dressing roll than you would with a smaller dressing roll that’s off to the side.”

Automation solutions

By 2020, Hackman says customer requirements started shifting dramatically toward single-use instruments, owing to a corresponding explosion in orthopedic surgeries occurring in smaller outpatient medical centers, generally doctor-owned facilities. As Hackman explains, demand for a simpler, functional tool at the lowest cost, replaced the need for a visual showpiece. Because of this the primary material changed from 17-4 stainless steel to various other types, such as 455, 465, etc., which have “a different surface finish and tend to produce more burrs, so it takes more time to deburr the parts.”

The switch to single-use instruments also increased production volumes exponentially. As Hackman summarizes, “Ten years ago we were doing six-, eight-, and 10-piece orders. We had an 11,000-piece order last July…We still have the technology, the innovation, and the knowhow to provide a burr-free, beautifully finished part. But now we must manufacture them by the thousands, instead of by the fives and sixes.”

Once again, ANCA fit the need. With robot loaders and automatic wheel changing from a 6-position carousel on their MX machines, Tru-Edge can run lights-out. Another contributor is the traveling steadyrest, riding on what ANCA calls the P-axis. As Brunswick explains, long, thin surgical cutting tools tend to bow, but Tru-Edge developed part-specific bushings that, in conjunction with the steadyrest, force the tool into a perfectly straight setup for the grind. As such, Hackman says a single MX can produce 5,000 small-diameter surgical drills per month.

Automating femoral rasp production typically involves an automatic collet chuck and a swing-out tailstock to secure the other end. As Hackman puts it, these rasps vary widely. “Some are long, skinny, and very concentric. Others are more crooked, like a dog’s leg. We had to develop part-specific tailstock fixturing to allow different shapes to be held on-center.”

To address this need Tru-Edge makes its own fixtures at a sister company, MetalCut Tool Services, in Dayton, Ohio.

These parts are typically designed in Siemens NX, and ANCA provides a post-processor to create the machine motions. After importing this file, ANCam lets the operator manage specific process parameters, such as speeds and feeds, offsets, wheel selection, and dressing cycles. ANCA’s CIM3D package offers a full simulation to verify the grinding motion and to compare the expected part with the original model.

In short, with engineering, design, and manufacturing under one roof, Tru-Edge leveraged their partnership with ANCA to reduce cycle time, remove supply chain pain, and reduce the end-users’ total cost of ownership.

Bright future

Hackman foresees continued growth in the medical instruments market as baby boomers continue to age and the trend of patients seeking care at smaller surgical centers continues. He believes Tru-Edge’s embrace of automation positions them to be “the premier supplier to the industry for that niche market.” In fact, he adds, their orthopedic customers have made Tru-Edge their sole supplier for instrument grinding.

Hackman says Tru-Edge’s next project is further automating bone rasp production. That advance would grow the company’s medical business 10% to 15%, he reasons, eliminating the need to buy another four machines and hire enough staff in today’s tight labor market to hand-load these complex parts.

At Tru-Edge, the future is bright because the company has expanded its capabilities and managed growth with surgical precision.

ANCA CNC Machines
https://machines.anca.com

Tru-Edge
https://tru-edge.com