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Used Nusil products during the manufacturing of one of our medical devices to help reduce the friction in one of our mating parts. The products work great. If you are looking at making something more lubricious, I recommend their products.

Strengths: Leader in medical grade silicones.

Needs to improve: Website is hard to navigate.

We equipped our warehouse with their tape dispensing equipment for shipping out our medical devices. They are very reliable. 3M offers many different tapes and sizes for every application. Also purchased double coated tapes and several adhesives from them.

Strengths: Great supplier of packaging and tape dispensing materials. Strong industry knowledge around sealants and adhesives.

Needs to improve: Can be expensive in relation to other suppliers.

Used tap plastics to help create an enclosure for our motor tester. The enclosure helped isolate the operator from the rotating shaft. Also used them to fabricate another enclosure for a water cutter that had prox swtiches built into it.

Strengths: Fiberglass, acrylic and plastic enclosures that are cut to size,

Needs to improve: None

We transferred our manufacturing out of the US and used PBL for our biological testing toxicology, biocompatibility, and microbiology testing as part of the validations for the transfer. We also use them frequently to perform bioburden testing for us as well. They are reliable and have sound expertise.

Strengths: Biological testing, toxicology, biocompatibility, sterilization services,and microbiology testing.

Needs to improve: None

Used them at 3 different companies to purchase adhesives, tapes and lubricants. It is very to easy use their website. They have all types of tapes available for every application. I have even had engineers drive to Sunnyvale to make quick purchases as needed. They have very good customer service.

Strengths: Have a wide selection of tapes, adhesives, lubricants, and electrical components.

Needs to improve: NONE.

My company has used Vita Needle for years to provide tubing and needles for our medical device applications. They have a large selection of materials. The customer service team can help you select the type of material and sizes that you need. They generally can fulfill orders quickly.

Strengths: Leader in providing stainless steel tubing and needles for the medical device industry.

Needs to improve: None

Our current contract manufactuer could not create the molds for our project in a timely manner, so we contacted Protomold. These guys were able to crank out 5 different molds in a matter of weeks. They were also able to turn around changes to them in days.

Strengths: Super quick at creating aluminum molds.
Great customer service, friendly company.

Needs to improve: None.

Used them to conformal coat our existing PCB boards. Also used them to apply special rubber gasketing around the perimeter of our medical device to prevent water ingress.

Strengths: Reliable, technically savy, and responsive.
I had people there hand deliver my parts on several occasions.

Needs to improve: NONE.

Used their PCB's in our class 3 medical device- boards were pretty reliable. When we did have issues we were able to resolve them quickly. Reptron built nice "bed of nails testers" and had an array of other test equipment readily available for us.

Strengths: In-house expertise, reasonable priced, troubleshooting, failure analysis

Needs to improve: Customer Service- I had trouble getting the right person on the phone when I had questions.

We were having failures with our electro-mechanical medical device in the field. We used Riga to help us analyze the printed circuit boards and other electronic components. They were able to quickly isolate the problem to a component on our PCB. They quickly issued us a report and recommended a solution.

Strengths: In-house expertise, Failure Analysis, PCB Troubleshooting

Needs to improve: None.

Used them several times at one company. The experience was always positive. They did custom packaging for one of our devices. They also offered another die-cut solution for another. Service is excellent.

Strengths: Awesome customer service. These guys make you feel like you are their number 1 customer.
Expertise in foam packing for medical applications.

Needs to improve: None.

Used their lasers for a medical device application. The product worked very well. The laser was the one components in the device that we never had to service.

Strengths: Can provide a solid laser solution to most applications. A large amount of in-house techincal expertise.
A wide variety ot different products for a lot of applications. Business Development people actually understand how the products work.

Needs to improve: Responsiveness needs to be improved. Had to spend a few days and talk to several people to get the answers I needed.

Used their equipment particularly for strip cutting and lamination. Their equipment is outstanding. Their engineers provided on-site support for our equipment install. The machines are superior to most of their competitors.

Strengths: In -house technical knowledge. The leader in strip cutting and lamination machines. Very responsive. Will be on-site for equipment installs.

Needs to improve: Expensive

Used them for Medical device applications that relied heavily on manipulating MPEG 1 and MPEG2 formats.
They also helped us troubleshoot some issues we were having with encoders.

Strengths: This company is technically savy particularly in the following areas: video encoding, decoding, and streaming over IP.

Needs to improve: Expertise appear to reside in France.

Experience was not good. Had components and process issues with a PCB that they manufactured for us.

Strengths: Responsiveness, Cost

Needs to improve: Does not understand how to troubleshoot issues with their PCB's. Techincal Expertise is lacking.

Used them while at Stryker to manufacturer our PCB's used in our medical device. They always delivered on time and were easy to get on the phone. Could be faster at resolving issues but overall experience was positive when compared to some of the other board manufacturers.

Strengths: Friendly, Reliable, Low Cost, Quick Turn
A great deal of knowledge around design, fabrication and PCB manufacturing.

Needs to improve: In-process testing of circuit boards.

Used Vishay at a small medical device start-up company. Worked with Vishay to select the correct size load cell for our application. Vishay was strong technically. In the early stages we had a load cell connector issue that was quickly resolved by Vishay.

Consistently met our delivery schedule and was flexible to changes seen by normal start-up company.

Strengths: Customer Service, Knowledge of Load Cell Applications, Quality

Overall technical expertise is strong.

Used their load cells in our medical device application, their components were one of the more reliable of our system.

Needs to improve: Could be more competitive with cost.

Used them to help stock supplies during a company relocation.

Strengths: Large selection of everything you need for the office.

Needs to improve: None.

Use them for all our adhesives, also use some of their curing equipment.

Strengths: Large selection of adhesives for your needs.

Needs to improve: Getting help on the phone can be difficult.

Used them for Packaged and Sterilized Syringes.

Strengths: Reliable products. Customer Service. Large selction of products to meet your needs.

Needs to improve: Products are pricey.