Flexible, Reliable Cable Assemblies for Class III Medical Devices

Customer Challenge

A leader in the Class III cardiovascular medical device market has trusted Aptiv to provide cable assembly solutions for over a decade. The customer originally approached Aptiv with a need to improve the overall performance of their life-sustaining medical device.

Challenge Review

The customer was having issues with their current supplier and required a more reliable and globally positioned solution. Aptiv’s initial engineering review discovered material that was hard to source based on the previous design. Additionally, the material had high tensile strength, making the cable too rigid for the application. Aptiv was tasked with creating a design that utilized durable yet flexible components. The product needed to be cosmetically appealing and user-friendly for patients with custom overmolding of the strain relief.

Aptiv Solution

Aptiv provided extensive engineering support to the customer as a one-stop-shop for the cable, connector, overmold, and cable assembly requirements. By utilizing these capabilities, Aptiv was able to develop an enhanced design for manufacturability (DFM). Overall, this resulted in increased productivity of the interconnect components while also offering flexible design solutions with DFM for injection molding and laser welding tools.

Improvement

Aptiv understands the need for continuous design improvements that align with innovation and technological enhancements for medical devices, especially life-sustaining devices. Therefore, Aptiv has manufacturing facilities that are ISO 13485 certified and interconnects that are built to Class III standards. We are always developing solutions for customers that support manufacturability, performance, and reliability.