CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
12 April 2005
Implementation Investments
COSMOSWorks Helps St. Jude Medical Cut Time And Cost From Heart Valve Design Process
COSMOS® design analysis software is helping St. Jude Medical, Inc., a $2.3 billion developer of cardiovascular medical devices, cut time and cost from its design process by determining which designs are most likely to succeed during testing, and government trials, COSMOS announced today.
Engineers at St. Jude Medical, based in St. Paul, Minn., use SolidWorks Corp .'s COSMOSWorks®finite element analysis (FEA) software to determine the strength and endurance of heart valve components and complimentary products such as angioplasty rings. Closely integrated with SolidWorks®3D mechanical design software, COSMOSWorks enables the St. Jude Medical engineers to analyze and validate specific parts of the heart valve, such as the posts of a stent, to determine how the heart's contractions and the force of circulating blood affect their structural integrity. St. Jude Medical uses COSMOSWorks to cut cycles out of the process by testing materials under various conditions to determine stresses. Determining early in the process which designs are most likely to succeed enables St. Jude to eliminate wasting time on designs that won't stand up to real-word conditions, or pass FDA (Food and Drug Administration) trials and ISO (International Organization for Standardization) certification.
"We use COSMOSWorks for front-end design work to make sure we're calibrated for fatigue, before we get too far along in testing," said research and development engineer Peter Braido, who designs heart valves. "By the time we get to advanced testing l, we want to know it's safe. We can look at fatigue and how the forces on the valve can affect the design."
Companies once had to rely on specially trained analysts to conduct in-depth analyses, but COSMOSWorks puts design analysis features in the hands of every engineer in the design process. Built with ease-of-use in mind, COSMOSWorks enables engineers to run complex analyses and get reliable results without extensive training.
In collaboration with structural experts in the field, all of the St. Jude Medical designs undergo extensive analyses and testing before the company submits them for Food and Drug Administration approval. Since the company began using COSMOSWorks, Braido estimates the results his initial analyses yield are within approximately five percent of what the expert's more intense tests yield.
"St. Jude Medical's experience supports our long-held position that desktop analysis applications yield trustworthy results," said Suchit Jain, vice president of analysis products at SolidWorks Corp. "Products inserted into the human body are the ultimate test of quality and durability. COSMOSWorks' role in validating that quality and durability is further proof of desktop analysis software's use in every phase of the design process."
St. Jude Medical works with SolidWorks reseller Symmetry Solutions for training, implementation, and support.
Symmetry Solutions, Inc. (SSI) is an upper Midwestern provider of mainstream mechanical design, analysis, and information management productivity tools for the engineering, manufacturing, and educational communities. For more information on the company, events, or services visit the company Web site http://www.symsolutions.com or call 1-800-975-0740.
St. Jude Medical, Inc. ( http://www.sjm.com ) is dedicated to the design, manufacture and distribution of innovative medical devices, offering physicians, patients and payers unmatched clinical performance and demonstrated economic value.
Become a member of the CIMdata PLM Community to receive your daily PLM news and much more.
Tell us what you think of the CIMdata Newsletter. Send your feedback.
CIMdata is committed to your privacy. Your personal information will never be sold or shared outside of CIMdata without your express permission.