Arthrex: implant sets check

The customer

Arthrex is an international company specializing in medical instruments and leader in the development of new products and medical education in orthopaedics. Arthrex Nederland was established in 2008 and has since then succeeded to position itself as one of the market leaders. The company supplies lean sets of medical components for operations – e.g. prostheses – to hospitals and private clinics. 

The challenge

Arthrex Nederland was looking for a solution to automatically detect implants sets. Initially, lists were automatically created at the moment sets were sent to the clients, and on their return. On the basis of these lists, the implants sets were manually checked and completed. This necessary double manual control was very time-consuming.

Aucxis was engaged to develop an RFID solution to automate this process within the logistic product flow. The objective was to obtain a correct and automatic check of:

• the completeness of implants sets when they are sent to and return from clients
• the expiry date of the medical components
• the condition of the medical components on their return; they may not be opened, damaged or contain traces of their transport

De oplossing

On each implants bin – which contains several implants boxes – an RFID tag (label) is attached, which identifies the bin. Also, on every implants box an RFID tag (label) is attached. The article number and lot number are scanned and the expiry date is entered. This information is linked to the RFID tag.

In order to automatically detect the content of the implants bins, Aucxis developed an RFID scan box. As the implants boxes contain items with a metal packaging, they have to be scanned at full power so that all RFID tags are perfectly readable.
In order to avoid other sets in the proximity being detected, the scan box is the perfect solution. A measurement starts at the moment the door of the scan box is closed and ends when it is reopened. On a screen is shown by means of different colours (green/red) which items/boxes are missing/used and which ones are still available. In this way, it is clear which items have to be added and which items are expired.