With cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) still the leading cause of death globally, and medical wire a key component in the central venous catheters and guidewires used by surgeons to treat CVD patients, medical device manufacturers remain in strong need of custom wire solutions. And within the medical wire sector, recent years have seen one component supplier growing at a particularly fast rate.
Founded in 2002, Custom Wire Technologies manufactures custom medical wire components from its facility in Port Washington, Wisconsin, US. With a high level of expertise and a commitment to serving customers, it’s not hard to see why Custom Wire Technologies (CWT) is amongst the leading companies spearheading the industry’s growth.
And as the business, workforce and service offering have expanded, so has CWT’s manufacturing footprint. With available manufacturing space becoming tighter, housing an increasing range of equipment every few years, CWT decided to move to a new facility in 2011 with triple the manufacturing space. Further capability expansions and an increasing customer base led the company to expand once again in 2021, doubling its previous footprint and increasing to 30,000ft2.
Mike Boldig, director of operations at CWT, tells the story: “With the growth CWT has experienced in the past few years we were no longer able to house the equipment required for future growth. The expanded facility was an existing building which required renovations to accommodate Custom Wire’s needs. Renovations took approximately six months and the facility opened in October 2021. We are now in a much better position to support our rapidly increasing customer base.”
More space, more capabilities
The expanded facility houses a new ISO Class 7 hard-walled cleanroom, double the size of the company’s previous cleanroom. In addition, CWT is in the process of constructing a Class 8 ultrasonic wash and passivation cell, after which it will still have around 10,000ft2 of additional room for future manufacturing expansion.
Earlier in 2021, CWT launched an expedited delivery programme called QwikCoil, combining exceptional R&D services with super-fast turnarounds on coiling orders. The popularity of this programme, as well as the increasing demand for CWT’s traditional coiling, grinding and value-added services has prompted the company to expand its sales team, too. Five additional offices were added during the facility expansion.
Sales isn’t the only team expanding at CWT. Mike Boldig adds that management is also working to hire additional operators for the new cleanroom and for another production area coming soon as one product line matures from R&D to full-scale manufacturing.
“Currently, we anticipate six additional operators to fulfil the current demands and growth,” he notes, adding that CWT also has a need to expand its technical engineering staff.
As workforce and capacities increase across the board, CWT is excited to be able to handle larger and more complex projects across all work cells. Additional equipment will equate to shorter lead times, enabling the company to keep responding to customer demands with the speed and agility its customers have come to appreciate.
Find out more by downloading the whitepaper below.
