Ethicon, Gmbh

Harro Hofliger Verpackungsmaschinen Gmbh

Manfred Hild

Konstantin K Ivanov

Manfred Reiser

Clifford A Dey

Robert J Cerwin

Mehmet Reyhan

Erwin Bauder

Delfin A Lorenzo Iglesias

John Rega

Thomas J Zingale

Bernard Wachter

Robert A Daniele

Martin Sobel

David A Szabo

Joseph Stanley Siernos

Donald Pompei

William R Reinhardt

Robert Nunez

J Mark Findlay

Bernhard Wachter

Raul Quinones

Matthew E Krever

Jervis P Lynch

David Roslon

Rolf Grotehusmann

Bernhard Frey

Alan Hughieson

Lorens Slokovic

Haro Hofliger

Edgar Wieland

Roland Eissele

A machine and method for loading surgical needles having attached sutures into a package. The machine has a rotating disk mounted to a frame. The disk has circumferential grooves for receiving a suture. The machine has a block slidably mounted to the machine for receiving a needle and transporting it to a motion device. The motion device moves the needle to a package on a packaging machine. Rotation of the package by the packaging machine causes the suture to move out of the grooves and into the package.

Automatic surgical needle and suture loading machine

A machine and process for packaging armed sutures into tray packages. The machine has a frame with a rotatable indexing disc member mounted to the top of the frame. A plurality of tool nests are rotatably mounted to the top of the indexing disc. Tray packages mounted in the toll nests are rotated to wind sutures into a suture channel in the packages. A stylus having a front nose member and a rear heel member guides suture into the suture channel. Channel winding pins in the winding tooling provide for an arranged wind of suture in a suture channel of the tray packages. The machine has an in-line printer and a punching machine for printing and punching paper covers from strips of stock material, which are then mounted to the tray packages.

Package winding machine

A machine and process for packaging armed sutures into tray packages. The machine has a frame with a rotatable indexing disc member mounted to the top of frame. A plurality of tool nests are rotatably mounted to the top of the indexing disc. Tray packages mounted in the tool nests are rotated to wind sutures into a suture channel in the packages. A stylus having a front nose member and a rear heel member guides suture into the suture channel.

Suture winding machine, suture tray package, and method of winding sutures

A process for applying a biobarrier member to a vent opening in a foil member used for medical device packaging. The process provides for cutting a biobarrier member from a roll of stock and sealing the biobarrier member about the vent opening in the foil member. The seal is tested for integrity and the biobarrier member is tested for porosity.

Process for microbial barrier vent to a foil package

The specification discloses an automated apparatus and method for packaging surgical needles having sutures attached thereto wherein a bundle of needles and sutures are placed at a semi-automated separation station and an operator feeds the needles, one at a time, into a rotating needle feed wheel. As the feed wheel advances, the suture is tensioned and directed along a pre-determined path to separate it from the remaining sutures in the bundle. The apparatus has a plurality of individually rotatable tool nests which are sequentially spaced on a rotating or indexing turntable. These tool nests sequentially receive plastic packages for receiving the needle and suture at a first station. At a second station, a needle is inserted into the package by robotic fingers which have retrieved the needle and attached suture from the rotating needle feed wheel. The rotating needle feed wheel and the rotating tool nests are synchronized to step together as each advances. At a third station, the package and needle are rotated to tension the suture and position the package and the suture for automatic winding of the suture into the package. At a fourth station, the rotatable tool nest is rapidly rotated to wind the suture into a circumferential channel in the package which surrounds the needle.

Automatic zipper package winding and packaging machine

Growing community of inventors

Schorndorf, Germany

Manfred Hild