Producing over 50 million nutritional feeding set components through injection moulding each year
Nutritional Feeding sets are essential in modern healthcare, supporting the safe and efficient delivery of fluids, medicines, and nutrients to patients. These devices consist of several precisely engineered components, all of which must work together flawlessly to ensure safety and performance.
For over 15 years, Rosti has collaborated with a leading medical client to manufacture high-volume IV sets, guaranteeing consistent quality, compliance with strict medical regulations, and a reliable supply to worldwide markets. This longstanding partnership highlights our ability to combine engineering expertise, contract manufacturing, and logistics to support customer growth internationally.
The Customer Challenge
When the customer first contacted Rosti, they were encountering a number of issues:
- Supplier quality concerns: Their existing European supplier had quality issues, raising concerns about reliability.
- No technical data – Drawings and component specifications were unavailable, making the customer vulnerable to inconsistencies.
- Ageing tooling: Outdated tooling limited scalability and threatened product consistency.
Our customer required a partner who could reverse engineer the entire Nutritional Feeding set, reconstruct missing technical data, and offer a long-term manufacturing solution scalable to tens of millions of units annually.
Feeding Set Components
The IV set includes several components, all of which must fit together precisely to ensure safety and function –
- Stopcocks – regulate fluid flow
- Tubing connectors – ensure secure connections
Rosti’s responsibility was to ensure each part was accurately replicated and manufactured to the highest medical standards, while also enabling future improvements in materials and design.
Scaling Production to Meet Demand
From the beginning of the partnership, the customer’s aim was to secure a stable, scalable supply chain to meet increasing global demand.
Today, Rosti produces between 50 and 60 million feeding sets annually, delivering to both European and Asian markets. Production has steadily grown alongside the customer’s expansion, facilitated by Rosti’s ability to scale operations, implement lean manufacturing principles, and uphold rigorous quality management systems.
This expansion not only demonstrates the resilience of our operations but also our commitment to supporting our customers’ long-term success.
The Reverse Engineering Process
With no technical drawings or CAD models to reference, our challenge was to reconstruct the nutritional feeding set from scratch. The new components needed to be identical to the originals to avoid interruptions to clinical functionality.
Key Milestones
- CT scanning of original parts to produce a high-resolution point cloud model.
- CMM analysis to capture key dimensions and tolerances.
- Creation of CAD models based on the scan data and measurements.
- Design review using digital simulation tools, such as Moldflow, to optimise manufacturability and identify potential improvements.
- Collaboration with the customer to review and approve the CAD models.
- Tooling design and manufacturing to facilitate high-volume production.
- Medical validation and regulatory approval before mass production.
Timeline
- Reverse engineering and digital modelling – completed within weeks.
- Full implementation, tooling, and validation – around 1.5 years.
This process not only recreated the original components but also provided the customer with a complete set of technical drawings and digital models – something they had never previously owned.
Material Development and Transitions
Throughout the partnership, materials have evolved in response to both regulatory changes and cost pressures:
- Initial phase: materials matched the original supplier’s specification to ensure continuity.
- First transition: a change was made to comply with updated medical regulations.
- Second transition: optimisation for cost reduction while maintaining compliance and performance.
Rosti’s ability to manage these transitions smoothly reflects both its expertise in materials and its commitment to balancing compliance, performance, and cost-effectiveness.
Contract Manufacturing & Logistics
This project demonstrates the value of Rosti’s full contract manufacturing offering:
- Design & engineering – from reverse engineering to CAD modelling and simulation.
- Tooling & validation – partnered with a toolmaker to build tools, followed by rigorous medical validation.
- High-volume production – manufacturing tens of millions of sets each year under ISO-certified conditions.
- Logistics & distribution – delivering to both European and Asian markets, ensuring a reliable global supply chain.
By managing the whole process from design to delivery, Rosti delivered a seamless, fully integrated solution.
Results & Impact
- Improved quality: consistent, validated manufacturing processes resolved previous supplier issues.
- Full ownership: the customer received digital drawings and specifications for the first time.
- Scalable supply chain: production scaled up to 50–60 million sets each year.
- Long-term partnership: Rosti has supported the customer for over 15 years and continues to develop the product and materials.
This has positioned Rosti as a strategic partner driving growth, reliability, and innovation.
This case study illustrates how Rosti’s technical expertise, medical validation capabilities, and global presence enabled a customer to overcome supplier challenges, secure a robust supply chain, and scale production to meet rising worldwide demand.
By combining reverse engineering, material development, and high-volume manufacturing, Rosti has become a trusted partner in providing safe, high-quality nutritional feeding sets to healthcare providers throughout Europe and Asia.
