About Client
Industry: Medical Devices
Product: Prototypes for Orthodontist
Location: Gliwice, PL
Why Xu Feng
Customer challenges: Searching for a supplier that can provide great customer support and fast turnaround with competitive prices.
Capabilities Leveraged: Excellent quality CNC machining and Bending parts, a scalable business model: 1 part or hundreds of parts can be required
Result: Produced 1 and 11 sets of prototypes extremely fast, all with the precision required, successfully build multiple high-function orthodontists.
Background of the Cooperation
Founded in 1987, PHU has been at the forefront of medical device manufacturing. With a reputation for innovation, PHU designs and produces a diverse range of products for hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and private treatment facilities. Their product portfolio includes:
- Rehabilitation Benches
- Hydrotherapy Equipment
- Kinesiotherapy Products
- Suspension Therapy Tools
- Advanced Cryotherapy Machines
From day one, PHU has pursued a singular mission: to create innovative, efficient, and affordable products that support patients’ well-being and streamline therapists’ workflows. This commitment allowed PHU to spot growing market demand for rehabilitation equipment and seize the opportunity to lead. However, scaling up their operations presented new production challenges.
Their in-house manufacturing approach, while innovative, resulted in production slowdowns, increased team size, and costly bottlenecks. This limited PHU’s ability to meet growing market demand. Small factories lacked the capacity and flexibility to meet PHU’s rising production needs, and traditional suppliers couldn’t support agile, fast-scaling workflows.
“We focused on our core technologies, skills, and capabilities. For everything else, we partner with other suppliers like Xu Feng.”
Recognizing the rising global demand for rehabilitation devices, PHU saw a clear opportunity to lead. However, they also identified critical inefficiencies in traditional product design and manufacturing methods. To overcome these challenges, PHU adopted a leaner, more agile production strategy.
Rafal Kowolik, vice president at PHU, explains:
“We focused on our core technologies, skills, and capabilities. For everything else, we partner with other suppliers like Xu Feng. This approach allows us to stay agile and efficient without compromising on quality or capacity.”
The strategy is paying off. By leveraging Xu Feng’s extensive manufacturing work, PHU is rapidly cementing its position as a global leader in robotics and rehabilitation solutions.
Before partnering with Xu Feng, PHU faced significant production hurdles. Their in-house manufacturing model, combined with the complexity of their custom-designed products, resulted in long lead times, increased team sizes, and workflow bottlenecks. Small-scale factories couldn’t offer the capacity or flexibility PHU needed for growth.
Janusz Franczyk, co-founder of PHU, highlights the impact of working with Xu Feng:
“Small factories often create bottlenecks when projects require rapid scaling. With Xu Feng, we gain access to an expansive service bandwidth, ensuring capacity is never a constraint. Their network of rigorously vetted manufacturing partners allows us to quickly source the right vendors to meet our specific needs.”
Addressing PHU’s Production Challenges
Overcoming Complex Design Challenges
PHU’s product designs are renowned for their precision and complexity, especially in robotics and ergonomic devices. However, this level of intricacy comes with its own set of challenges.
According to Rafal Kowolik, “We joke about how challenging our designs are. When we assemble 15 parts for a robot, two or three often require reconfiguration — sometimes due to unforeseen issues during assembly or last-minute customer adjustments. Xu Feng allows us to respond swiftly, make those modifications, and restart the manufacturing process without delay.”
This agility is crucial for PHU, enabling them to maintain tight deadlines while still accommodating design changes — a capability that’s essential for custom-built products and prototypes.
Balancing Form, Function, and Precision in Ergonomic Design
While robotics and ergonomics may share similar components and manufacturing processes, ergonomic products add additional complexity. Unlike robotics, ergonomic products tend to have less stringent space constraints, but they require components that fit tightly together and a seamless human-machine interface.
Achieving this level of integration requires precise engineering and tight tolerance control of production requirements. Xu Feng plays a critical role in supporting PHU’s pursuit of design excellence by providing the technical capabilities and manufacturing flexibility to meet these stringent requirements. From seamless fit to flawless form, Xu Feng’s capabilities align perfectly with PHU’s vision of advanced ergonomic solutions.
Precision Manufacturing of Orthodontic Prototypes
In addition to custom client projects, PHU partners with Xu Feng to manufacture critical components for their Orthodontist product. These components are designed to fit seamlessly with mating parts, ensuring efficient assembly and operational reliability.
To bring prototypes to life, Xu Feng relies on CNC machining, a manufacturing method well-suited for producing complex, high-strength components with exceptional precision.
Machines metal parts for orthodontists. Parts require high tolerances on assembly location and hole diameters
Machines Plastic parts for orthodontists. Parts require high surface without scratchs and dains
Seamless assembly of metal and plastic parts
For parts like orthodontist that require tight tolerances and can withstand hundreds of repetitive wear cycles, PHU chose aluminium and ABS for their durability, strength, and wear resistance. The surfaces of these CNC-milled plastic parts are powder-coated to create dense, multiple holes in the geometrically complex surfaces.
Sourcing complex parts with ease
In addition to solving rapid prototyping challenges, Xu Feng also helped them find the right suppliers for customized projects. For example, the sensor, and non-rotating gas spring used in the development of the device meant that PHU didn’t have to search for the right supplier for each part. Combined with Xu Feng’s comprehensive knowledge of the Chinese market, they were able to save time and effort by helping with this tedious task.
PHU also utilizes Xu Feng’s Design for Manufacturing (DFM) feedback to experiment with new configurations and tolerances, as well as new products with unique features. For iterative design processes, such as those for exoskeleton machines, this design guidance has helped PHU Corporation realize unlimited innovation.
Additionally, Xu Feng’s professional services team enables them to provide timely updates to clients as projects progress. According to Rafal Kowolik, working with Xu Feng “has given us the rapid prototyping and manufacturing capabilities to provide our clients with accurate timelines and cost estimates. This ensures that we can deliver cost-effective solutions on time.”
“The difference with Xu Feng offers is that fast turnaround time, I get my parts as fast as one week to ensure my product meets the tight market requirement.”
