Design and Development of Orthopedic Implants Through PLM Strategies

The main research purpose in this work was to propose strategies to reduce uncertainty, setbacks and development times involved into orthopedic implants design process. For research proposal, it was used as reference a manufacturing framework design, based on simulation environments tools and PLM strategies. In addition, this research was carried out to define a model of practices which facilitated process interoperability in osteosynthesis implant development. The model proposed focused on product definition stages and manufacturing as a workflow which defined stages, processes, activities and roles in production of implants with collaborative work scheme in PLM. As part of model execution, a case study was developed in a technology-based company which produces osteosynthesis implants. Finally, the research compared traditional processes in this company with the new model proposed, in order to determine obtained improvements. Finally, this comparison shows reduction in repetitive operations and uncertainty into the processes. Besides, quality of final design was improved like high precision and time reduction.