Is automated coating equipment significantly changing medical device manufacturing for the better?
Manufacturers of medical devices need to develop safe, high-quality, effective devices all while keeping their costs down. This tall task is a result of increased pressure from the current market and the tight restrictions imposed through regulations.
How can OEMs meet these requirements without incurring excessive costs?
The use of surface coatings, such as hydrophilic coatings helps manufacturers produce safer, high-performance devices while maintaining a profitable cost structure. Catheters and guide wires are two examples of medical devices that have unique coatings. These coatings improve performance by providing a biocompatible, lubricious surface that makes insertion and navigation through the body easier and less painful. However, these devices heavily rely on precisely applied surface coatings in order to be effective.
However, as demand and regulatory pressures increase manual coating processes will quickly become too slow and difficult to manage for manufacturers. Processes are largely shifting towards automated or semi-automated ones.
Automated hydrophilic coating equipment is changing how medical devices are made. These systems use:
- Automated production lines
- Modular designs
- UV-curable coatings that cure quickly
- Integrated friction testing
- Capability to handle high-volume production
Automated Hydrophilic Coating Systems has shifted hydrophilic coatings application from an art into a repeatable, dependable, industrial process. Equipment from companies, such as Hydromer, Inc. show that application equipment innovation is just as important as the coating products themselves when it comes to creating advanced medical devices.1,2
In this article we will look at how and why automated coating equipment is redefining medical device manufacturing. This article is helpful if you are any of the following roles: Plant Manager, Operations Manager, Plant Engineering Manager, Coating Department Manager, VP Operations, Facilities Manager or Director, COO, etc. Once you read it, contact us with any questions or feedback.
The Growing Prevalence and Importance of Hydrophilic Coatings in Medical Devices
Hydrophilic coatings are one of the most common types of medical device surface modifications today. They are used extensively in minimally invasive medical devices because they make the surfaces “slippery when wet.” This helps the devices move more easily, causes less damage to tissues, makes patients more comfortable, and improves the results of medical procedures. In practice, this means catheters can be inserted more smoothly, guidewires can be controlled more precisely, and there is a lower risk of problems.3
However, achieving these benefits requires the hydrophilic coating to be of high quality and consistently applied. Variances in the coating’s thickness, hardness or adherence will create an inconsistency in terms of the slipperiness of the coating. This, in turn creates uneven wear and an increased potential for peeling off.
New regulatory requirements stipulate that all coatings are to be repeatable and traceable. As a result, manufacturers can no longer solely rely on partially manual or unorganized processes. This is resulting in a greater use of completely automated machines for the application of hydrophilic coatings for manufacturing medical devices.4,5
Transition From Manual Processes to Fully Automated Coating Lines
Historically, many hydrophilic coating operations relied on manual or semi-automated dipping, curing, and inspection steps. While such approaches can work at a small scale or in R&D environments, they become difficult in large-scale production.
Issues with manual coating processes
Handling and application by hand can lead to:
- differences in quality from one device to another
- Slower production
- Increased labor costs
- Difficulty checking and recording (tracing) everything accurately.6
Automated Processes
Automated coating lines solve these problems by combining all the important steps into one organized, done-for-you system.
Automated coating steps include:
- Preparation (getting the surface ready for coating)
- Applying the coating
- Curing and handling
- And more
Automation ensures every device goes through the same conditions, such as how fast it’s dipped, how long it stays there, and the energy used for curing. This leads to higher consistency and repeatability in the process and the end products.
For manufacturers, automation isn’t just about speed. It’s about creating a process that can be checked, watched, and expanded with confidence. Automated lines also reduce the need for operators, cut down on human mistakes, and offer the control needed to meet strict quality and regulatory standards in making medical devices.7,8
The Role of UV-Curable Systems in High-Performance Coatings
The performance of hydrophilic coatings relies heavily on their curing process. This will dictate how fast a product can move through the production process. It also determines how well the coating sticks to the substrate, how durable the coating will be once applied, and how uniform the surface characteristics of the coating will remain over time.
UV curable hydrophilic coatings, such as Hydromer®’s HydrUV™ are used on most modern automated machinery. The reason is because UV curing is faster than thermal curing, provides more accurate and consistent results, and uses less energy. UV curing provides energy directly to the coating. This results in faster drying while reducing heat stress to the underlying substrate.10,11
Benefits of UV-Cure Hydrophilic Coatings For Automated Coating Systems
When used in automated coating lines, UV-curable systems offer several important benefits. They:
- Help speed up production by reducing the time needed for each cycle
- Increase process consistency by providing the same curing conditions for each device
- Improve the quality of the coating by ensuring that the final layer has the desired strength, stickiness, and smoothness.
UV curing provides better control and more design options. This is important for companies working with materials that are sensitive to heat or have complex shapes. This is especially useful for creating advanced medical devices where the materials need to work well together, and surfaces must perform effectively, consistently.
Integrating Friction Testing into the Manufacturing Workflow
After the hydrophilic coating is applied the coated medical device needs to be tested to ensure the appropriate slipperiness (coefficient of friction) and durability. Friction testing and performance verification typically occur later in the process as part of the quality control procedures. While these methods allow you to identify problems with the coating and determine how well it will function, they do not help prevent issues from happening during your manufacturing process.
Modern, fully automated coating machines now have friction testing and performance verification built into their manufacturing and quality assurance procedures. These machines will enable manufacturers to correlate how the coating was applied to their performance in the field by testing and recording such things as slipperiness, wear, and longevity.
By integrating these methods, manufacturers will be able to enhance the quality of their coatings by being proactive rather than reactive.
How is this done?
Instead of identifying a problem after it has occurred, manufacturers can use data from the friction test step to adjust coating machine parameters. This can help them verify the stability of the manufacturing processes, and confirm that their products meet performance specifications.
Over time, this type of integration will provide manufacturers with stronger processes, fewer errors, and greater confidence in how derivatives will perform clinically.
Benefits of automated hydrophilic coating equipment
One of the greatest benefits of is its ability to produce large volumes of quality products efficiently. Demand for minimally invasive devices is growing rapidly. As such, manufacturers must produce several, if not hundreds of thousands of coated devices per annum without compromising product quality or consistency.7,8
Below are some of the advantages of the automation of hydrophilic coating processes:
- Automation can assist with even greater efficiency by delivering extremely precise processing times.
- Automation provides for a multi-step process with synchronized handling and curing systems. This ensures that the coated devices are moved through the coating process efficiently and predictably.
- Advanced control systems monitor all critical factors to ensure that they remain within acceptable ranges.
- Automated coating machines can increase production output without increasing the risk of defects.
- • Automated coating machines can also assist in achieving business objectives and complying with regulations due to their nimbleness and ease of operation.
- • Large batch production reduces the cost of coating and supports the reliability of the supply chain. At the same time, it maintains consistent quality, helps comply with applicable regulations and enhances brand image.
Strategic Partnerships and the Future of Coating Equipment
As the complexity of developing medical devices grows, it is clear that no single company has the ability to innovate on its own. Strategic partnerships are essential to drive innovation among various stakeholders; for example, amongst technically-savvy companies that specialize in both medical coatings and equipment manufacturers. The Hydromer and jMedTech partnership demonstrates the advantages of combining the strengths of coating chemists with the technological expertise of engineers of advanced equipment.1,2
This enables the joint development of innovative medical coatings, the design of the application process and the architecture of advanced, automated coating equipment. This creates a more integrated solution to address ever-changing challenges faced by manufacturers, such as enhancing the performance and durability of coatings, increasing the speed of production, maintaining product quality and safety, and controlling costs over time.
In addition, this type of integrated approach will likely be instrumental in developing new technologies for use in hydrophilic coating applications in the near future. For example, we may see greater emphasis placed upon digital controls, process monitoring during production, using data to drive efficiencies in production, and designing systems that can be easily changed to meet evolving needs. The focus of all these initiatives will be to create better performance, enhanced reliability, and faster time-to-market for device companies.
Redefining Device Manufacturing Through Automated Coating Equipment
The development of automated systems for the application of hydrophilic coatings has resulted in a new level of importance for manufacturers of modern medical devices. Fully automated systems, flexible manufacturing processes, ultraviolet curing systems, integrated friction testing systems, and large-volume production equipment have created a paradigm shift in the way we develop, evaluate, and manufacture coatings on a large scale. This shift has provided manufacturers with greater control over their production processes, increased consistency in the end product, and greater conformance with industry regulations in an extremely competitive business environment.
For physicians and patients, this will result in better functioning devices and improved outcomes through procedures. For the industry, this is indicative of the continued transition to a more data-driven, innovative approach to developing hydrophilic coatings. The decision to invest in advanced automated coating equipment and establish cooperative arrangements to develop these systems is more than just a financial investment. It will be a choice that will ultimately define how successful and trustworthy a manufacturer of medical devices will be in the future.
References
Click here to see all references for this article.
1. Hydromer. Strategic Investment by JMEDTECH, and Formation of Its New Board of Directors. https://hydromer.com/hydromer-reports-strategic-investment-by-jmedtech/
2. jMedtech. Breaking News | jMedtech Becomes a Strategic Shareholder of Hydromer to Jointly Build a Global Coating Platform! https://jmedtech.com/news/251031112837.html
3. Hydromer. Hydrophilic Coatings For Medical Device Substrates. https://hydromer.com/hydrophilic-coatings-for-medical-device-substrates/
4. Hydromer. Hydrophilic coating equipment. 2025;
5. Hydromer. Breakthroughs in Hydrophilic Coating Technology. https://hydromer.com/sb/breakthroughs-in-hydrophilic-coating-technology/
6. Hydromer. Automated Coatings: Precision for Hydrophilic Medical Devices. https://hydromer.com/automated-coatings-precision-for-hydrophilic-medical-devices/
7. Cetiner K, Guclu B, Mihcin S. Multifunctional automated angle-controlled multi-immersion coating machine for use in biomedical implant coatings. IEEE; 1-4.
8. Hnatiuk M, Kimball D, Kolanthai E, et al. High-throughput and versatile design for multi-layer coating deposition using lab automation through Arduino-controlled devices. Review of Scientific Instruments. 2021;92(8)
9. Aguwa CC, Monplaisir L, Sylajakumari PA. Rules modification on a Fuzzy-based modular architecture for medical device design and development. IIE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering. 2012;2(1):50-61.
10. Hydromer. UV Curing for Medical Devices: Role of PEG, PVP, Chitosan. Hydromer. https://hydromer.com/uv-curing-for-medical-devices-role-of-peg-pvp-chitosan/#:~:text=Materials%20like%20PEG%2C%20PVP%2C%20and,%2C%20and%20drug%2Dreleasing%20stents.
11. Hydromer. HydrUV™: Revolutionizing UV Medical Device Coatings. https://hydromer.com/hydruv-revolutionizing-uv-medical-device-coatings/
