Kit

They perform on site calibration for our company monthly. We have had a lot of quality issues with their documentation but they seem to be willing to put in the effort to improve.

Strengths: Provides on-site calibration services for a wide range of equipment and tools.

Needs to improve: Have had a lot of issues with mistakes on their calibration certs in the past. We have been working with them and the issue seems to be slowly improving.

Standards typically come in a timely manner, but sometimes when I'm working on a project and need to read a standard, wish more standards could be available instantly.

Strengths: Fairly good service for external standards.

Needs to improve: Have to wait for standards to come via email, but they typically arrive the same day. For some, electronic copies are not available. When standards change revisions, they do not always have the option of having the changes highlighted, this should be available on all standards for easy reference.

We get raw polypropylene resin pellets from Compounding Solutions. They also work with our extrusion vendor to add the colorant to resin for another one of our components. Good option for raw plastic materials.or compounding.

Strengths: Resin pellet supply, resin compounding with colorants.

Needs to improve: None so far.

Good options for off the shelf coated platinum/tungsten wire. Multiple coating thicknesses available.

Strengths: Small diameter wire, coated wire

Needs to improve: Have found that the polyimide coating on their wire is not the most durable (easily damaged/torn), but I guess that's expected with such thin walled coatings.

Good place for bare circuit boards, consistent product and turnaround times.

Strengths: Able to consistently provide printed circuit boards without many quality issues.

Needs to improve: None so far.

Have used them for custom medical device labels with metallic ink. Good capabilities for packaging projects with minimal quality issues.

Strengths: Good options for custom labels.

Needs to improve: None so far.

Previously worked with them to develop a custom guidewire. They were going to act as a full OEM for the guidewire but in the end we just couldn't get enough torque response out of it to make the project worth it. They manufacture guidewires for large medical device companies and I believe under their own name as well in some geographies, so they are pretty protective over information about their processes.

Strengths: Willing to work with you to meet your needs.

Needs to improve: Communication with their engineers in Japan can be a challenge.

In addition to being able to do a variety of components, in my previous company they acted as our OEM for full guidewire manufacturing. Whenever we had quality issues with the guidewires, they were willing to work with us to resolve them.

Strengths: Good customer service and able to do a variety of wire, tubes, etc.

Needs to improve: None so far.

Good option for extrusion of plastics. They have the capability to extrude some exotic materials that larger companies cannot or don't want to try.

Strengths: Good company for extrusion of all types of plastics.

Needs to improve: Many times things are done on a best effort basis. Also in my experience they don't like to do much post-processing.

Good source for medical device packaging. Willing to work with you to resolve issues if needed.

Strengths: Small company willing to work with you to meet your needs.

Needs to improve: At my previous company, we had some issues with ink blotches on our white boxes, but Thoro was willing to work with us to resolve the issue.

We get a lot of our electrical components from Digi-Key. They are very quick and generally have a good selection of off the shelf parts.

Strengths: Quick delivery, large selection.

Needs to improve: May not have some of the more specialized components.

Good option for catheter coating if you don't want to develop it in-house. Reliable turn around times and very few rejects/quality issues. Good sense of what it takes to qualify the process for cutomers' products.

Strengths: Their internal team can work with you to perform DOE, OQ, PQ for their coating process on your product.

Needs to improve: Once when we sent them 2 different lots of product, 1 that needed to be expedited, they mistakenly coated the lot that we did not request to be expedited first. This delayed the lot that was most important to get back to us first.

Contech was able to supply the type of catheter dispenser coil and clip I was looking for. Found several companies only offered the newer "clipless" type dispenser coil but Contech had that type as well as the clipped type I was looking for.

Strengths: Good options for catheter and guidewire dispenser coils.

Needs to improve: None so far.

We were able to get a few components from Mouser that could not be found at other large electronics companies such as Digi-Key. Good place to try if looking for electrical components.

Strengths: Quick service.

Needs to improve: None so far.

Was responsive in fixing an issue with our component, and made sure we took the right steps to ensure the next batch of components would meet our expectations.

Strengths: Good for custom mandrels, such as shaping mandrels that get included with some catheters.

Needs to improve: On our first order, our mandrels can sharp at the end (not good for inserting into a catheter), but they fixed the issue upon the next order.