WASP produces and sells 3d printers; it works in research holding many things together. We, as WASP, are machines and materials’ developers, we develop the process and the training to allow people working, by offering the necessary instruments. In the medical field we have decided to move ahead by sharing, we mean that we take care of the customer’s request as the final result to be optained then, as second step, we say : “let’s work together”, studing each single case through the planning of the whole process (use of the machine,choise of best materials and knowledge sharing).

We generally don’t realise prototypes (even if they can be made) but final products, ready for the application. We do realise prosthesis and any kind or aids like corsets, braces and orthopedic insoles…

3d printing offers lot of advantages. for example it works very well on complex shapes. Every patient is a specific case, one different from the other, a specific drawing is required for each single project. Using these processes we can work easily and in a cofortable way by obtaining a high quality result.

For sure we can. For example in case of very specific and complex shapes and to help patients with particularly debilitating physical conditions whose plaster cast acquisition would be almost impossible, the scanning acquisition will give no problem. Moreover with the 3d printing we can reach the best shape freedom.

The advantages are linked to the process of optimasation which is emproved in most of the cases sparing time and resources. There is no limit in the possibility of intervenction during the planning and the correction of the aids, there is no waste during the working process and the manpower of a single part is considerably reduced. An additional advantage is the ripeatability: the scanning can be reclaimed later on, maybe slightly modified but printed using the same code every time. With the traditional techniques there is no possibility to reproduce with the same precision a corset.

It comes without saying that saving on the material is a must, thanks to acquisition (no waste of plaster once it’s used). These are big savings.

Actually it takes about 30 hours. Don’t worry about it, everything depends on how the whole process is being organised. In case you are well organised and you don’t need a lot of time to scan, draw and print the object, the final result won’t need of any further refining and at the end we are competitive in terms of time too.

Saving on manpower is automatic as it’s the machine that works, not the man. Furthermore it’s possible to plan a certain array of machine, like for example five 3d printers producing five corsets per day. Like this the system becomes supportable.

Of course it is. Indeed, if you are not familiar with the 3d printing it is always better to start step by step, using digital fabrication only for the initial phases like scanning or for specific manufacturing. Consequently once scanning has been optimised improving the drawing phase and by acquiring the material’s knowledge, 3d printing can be used more and more often until a total replacement of standard plaster. This is the future and revolutionary direction.

Don’t you know the machines? Cannot you 3d print? Well, introduce your case to our team, we will work together on it. WASP will accompany you during the first several processing phases till when you can get the process as your standard daily working way.

We have a full range of materials duly fine tuned by us that meet any requirements in the medical digital fabrication. We move from traditional materials, used for molds,prototypes ecc.. to stronger materials necessary for the production of orthosis. In this specific case we have fine tuned the polypropylene. On the contrary where a greater freedom of movement is required we can use very flexible materials too.

All materials inside our medical set have skin contact certification.

To whom who get closer to the purchase of our digital orthopedic laboratory we offer a particular cooperation, starting from specific medical digital fabrication courses.  Cooperation means consultation, very specific communication skills, rarely found someone else. What we suggest to our client is: submit us your case, let’s work together on it.  If we’ll get wrong, we’ll start again till we reach the best processing result. Consider as warranty the fact that we use the same machines and that we speak the same language. In some cases we help in the modeling and we can make printing tests too. In conclusion we grant you a very  intense and dedicated assistance.

No we don’t. We are actually moving towards modelling faciliting systems, we are not making software. The reason is due to the fact that each case is different from the other with its own needs according to the final requested result and each customer fine tunes his personal process, finding his own way to work and consequetly his own software. WASP is at customer disposal for
designers’ consultation too but no drawing courses nor drawings are supplied by WASP.