Stryker Howmedica Osteonics Takes It to Next Level With Agfa S-i Automatic Film Processor

Orthopedic disease and trauma affect millions of Americans each year, limiting mobility, decreasing productivity, and impairing the quality of their lives. Patients rely on their prosthetic products to help restore normal function, eliminate pain, and return to the activities of daily life that so many of us take for granted. Joint replacement surgery enables hundreds of thousands of people around the world to regain mobility they've lost to arthritis, trauma, and other ailments. Allendale, New Jersey-headquartered Howmedica Osteonics is the orthopedic implant manufacturing subsidiary of the $2.6-billion Stryker Corporation. Surgeons worldwide know it for its highly creative engineering solutions to the toughest clinical problems. Howmedica Osteonics has played a significant role in the advancement of orthopedics and has a vast portfolio of best-in-class implants, devices, and instruments.

Howmedica Osteonics develops, manufactures, markets, and sells total hip, total knee, upper extremity, trauma, and spinal implants that impart both immediate and long-term patient benefits. To meet the manufacturing tolerances for its leading-edge orthopaedic products, Howmedica since 1993 has used film systems, chemistry, and film processors developed by Agfa NDT.

Howmedica Osteonic's Investment Casting Team Leader Leo Rando noted that Howmedica Osteonic's plant in Allendale currently is generating some 100 to 130 exposures a day. The Allendale facility uses Agfa's Structurix D4 film for about 90 percent of its radiography and Structurix D7 for the remainder. He said Agfa's automatic film processor, automatic developer, and automatic fixer have been mainstays of the Allendale NDT program for the past seven years.

The original film processor experienced so much use that parts wore out as it aged, to the point that Howmedica Osteonics decided it was time to upgrade. "We've purchased a new Agfa NDT S-i automatic film processor," Rando said, "although we haven't put it to use yet, but only because we're moving our facility from Allendale to Mahwah."

He noted that a key reason Howmedica Osteonics is staying with Agfa NDT is its responsive service and great attention to detail. "Even with the issues we encountered operating the older unit," he said, "we liked that level of service."

Rando observed that the designs of both the new and old equipment made them very easy to work with. There's not as much user interface required with the GE Inspection Technologies designs as with its competitors, he said. He pointed out that the new unit's design features would ensure even finer quality reproduction. "Agfa's film and chemistry are very reproducible from lot to lot, and the consistency of film is very high," said Rando. He said that for prothesis castings, "reproducibility" is important. "Agfa film processing chemicals are very simple and user-friendly," he said. "You just mix a bottle with water and you're ready to go." Rando added: "Speed - our ability to bring product to market quickly - is important because this is a highly innovative, highly competitive industry."