The Company
Innova Design, Inc. specializes in developing and manufacturing innovative equipment. Our equipment provides medical device and other manufacturers solutions to tackle intricate process challenges, to increase productivity and to improve process consistency and repeatability. Formerly PolyComputing and Advanced Process Engineering (APE), Innova Design is the leading supplier of laser bonder technology and equipment for joining catheter components. We are proud of our advanced knowledge and years of experience in polymer processing, catheter development, and laser bonding technology. Since our first laser bonder developed in 2003, we have constantly working in improving and developing new models for our laser bonder product line. Our laser bonders have been used by companies such as W. L. Gore, Cordis, EV3, Microport, etc, for applications in both PTCA and PTA catheters, and for the most popular materials such as Nylon, Pebax, PET, Hytrel, PU TPE, etc. in catheter manufacturing. At Innova Design, innovation never stops. We are actively engaged in developing new equipment, processes, and components to meet the needs of our customers for their emerging technologies and challenges.
The People
Innova Design is owned and operated by engineers who have years of experience in the field of polymer processing, catheter design and development, machine design, and software development. Our experience in catheter design has allowed us to develop our laser bonders from the point of users of our machine rather than from its designers.
The History
Before 2002, PolyComputing focused on developing software products. Products developed include Balloon Tube Designer, a program to help determine the tubing sizes for a given catheter balloon size and vise versa. Another product was the Just-in-time Labeling System for printing in-line labels for medical devices. This business did not go anywhere. In 2002, an opportunity came to develop a catheter laser bonder for one of the leading medical device companies in China. This led to the development of our first generation laser bonder as in the following picture
The first generation was not PLC controlled. It only has limited programmability. The machine also has a large foot print. Right after that, a second generation was developed as in the following picture. The machine was fully controlled by a PLC. It allowed the user to write Static, Dynamic, and Manual bonding program. The programming structure was later developed into a serial multi-step bonding recipe framework named Logitrol.
The second generation has a short travel distance (125mm). Based on customer input, the third generation was developed with long travel distance (>250mm). We also introduced for the first time the new direct drive spindles. This generation can be seen in the following picture. The bonding programming interface was further improved to allow 70 programs to be stored. The closed loop laser was used in this version.
Although gen 3 has all major functionalities, the work chamber is less easy to reach in which affects the efficiency of sample loading/unloading. Text based programming interface was not as user friendly as graphical interfaces. In 2006, a major design change led to generation 4. The new generation uses a touch screen HMI and has flip open safety door. These features, together with the large work chamber, have made our laser bonder not only accurate, consistent, and reliable, but also easy to operate. More improvement have been made since the introduction of gen 4 and new innovations are continued to evolve. We have committed to continue our efforts to make our laser bonders more functional and more reliable, but also more affordable.