Feb 01, 2016 
Cardiocom, located in Chanhassen, MN, is a manufacturer of telehealth devices that relay biometric readings of patients directly to agencies, doctors, and hospitals, as well as to their own bank of nurses. These innovative home telehealth services enable health professionals to identify symptomatic patients and intervene early to prevent unnecessary hospitalizations for patients with heart failure, COPD, asthma, diabetes, hypertension and other chronic conditions. Given the sensitive nature of these devices, it is important that they be extremely accurate and reliable, which all starts with a high-quality manufacturing process.
In manufacturing Cardiocom’s telehealth devices, flexible tubing needs to be cut and measured to various lengths below three inches. In the early stages of the company, Cardiocom took on the laborious task of processing this tubing by hand, but later found that using automated equipment could potentially save time. However, finding the right equipment proved to be a bit of a challenge. Achieving an accurate cut length with an automated machine was difficult because of the stretch that occurred in the tubing while being fed to the cutter; and Cardiocom was not about to sacrifice its quality for time savings. Before discovering Schleuniger equipment, Cardiocom purchased two separate units that failed to function properly from a Schleuniger competitor. After realizing that the current equipment was not going to be able to handle their application, Cardiocom started their search again and this time reached out to Schleuniger, a leading international manufacturer of wire processing equipment.
“We were able to demo the Schleuniger equipment for a few days before purchasing and were extremely pleased with the service and ‘will do’ attitude of the sales representative,” says Greg Tobin, Manufacturing Tester and Equipment Manager at Cardiocom.
During the demo, Cardiocom confirmed that Schleuniger’s EcoCut 3200 cutting machine was fit for the task and was able to accurately cut the flexible tubing, providing precise, repeatable results. With this peace of mind, Cardiocom confidently moved forward with a purchase.
Since purchasing the machine, Cardiocom has increased its cuts from 10 cuts per minute to 120 cuts per minute and reduced its monthly labor costs for this process from $667.00 to just $56.00 without sacrificing high-quality! At this rate the unit paid for itself in only nine months. However according to Tobin, due to the reduced risk of injury to the assemblers, the payback was immediate! “Best of all, the unit we purchased actually outperformed Schleuniger’s specs!” adds Tobin.
Cardiocom is extremely pleased with the results it has achieved since purchasing the EcoCut 3200 and enjoys using the easy to operate machine. Tobin notes that pre-programmed configurations, very quiet operation, and very low maintenance are all key features the Cardiocom team appreciates in the EcoCut 3200.
“We have been extremely pleased with this equipment and would readily recommend Schleuniger to others. We were also pleased to see that our parent company, Medtronic, one of the largest medical device companies in the world, also employs Schleuniger equipment in their production.”
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