Transforming Medtech with AI and Virtual RealityTransforming Medtech with AI and Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) can be gamechangers when it comes to getting complex high-quality products to market faster and more efficiently, said Seamus Maguire, global vice president of lean systems at Freudenberg Medical, in an interview with MD+DI. Freudenberg has successfully used VR for complicated tech transfers from different countries spanning multiple languages much faster than traditional methods and has developed AI to determine optimal site layouts.

Using these technologies can standardize the human element aspect of manufacturing, which is where a lot of the slow-down can happen, Maguire said. “We are only limited by the number of headsets that we have,” he said, noting that there are 47 different nationalities in just one of the company’s facilities in Ireland, and language is not a problem with this kind of technology.

At MD&M West, which is taking place from Feb. 4-6, 2025, in Anaheim, CA, Maguire will speak on how Freudenberg is using AI and VR to enhance operator training and optimize factory layout planning. MD+DI recently interviewed Maguire about his presentation and what he hopes his attendees will learn from the session.

Can you provide a brief overview of what you intend to present in the session, “From Design to Production: Transforming Medtech with AI and VR?”

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Maguire: At Freudenberg Medical we’ve been using VR and AI to help us get high-quality products to market faster. There are a couple of key elements to that. The first thing we did with VR was standardizing the human element. We helped to improve the quality of training and build muscle memory of operators without interrupting the product flow. That was our first foray into to using VR.

The next use case for that was using a thing we call a 3P process, which is production, preparation, and process. It's a lean methodology. Typically, in a 3P process, you create a 3D mock-up made of cardboard of the new cell layouts that you're going to use. It’s labor intensive, but the idea is that you come up with multiple alternatives. Or some people like to do it digitally, but with that you lose that tactile and that sense of immersion.

We were able to do all that in VR and take the best of both worlds and have the benefits of the traditional full-scale visual mock-up of the layout but also have a digitized version so we can store it, share it, and so on, and that's really powerful.

And there are other things that we were doing. First, we're expanding on 3Ps, as we've also used it for facility planning as well for some of our internal products.

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I'm really excited about how we're using VR in our tech transfers from Europe and North America to low-cost regions like Costa Rica. Instead of our trainers trying to learn at the outgoing site how the steps are done, we can just send our VR training files to the incoming site and they can put on the headset, and even before we start kitting out the line, the operators are able to start practicing building parts in a standard lean way, in the same way that it's being built at the outgoing site.

We can also put the outgoing line layout into VR, so engineers in Costa Rica, instead of trying to work around the time zone differences by email and look at photos that they have of the line, can put on a headset and explore the current layout that we might have in Ireland or North America. It allows for a faster knowledge transfer, which is really exciting. We’ve been using that for a large project at the moment.

Another exciting step is we have a group in Germany called the Freudenberg Technology Innovation Center. We have a junior scientist there, Darian Zeiss, and he's helping us develop all these VR packages. He and his team are working on a proprietary AI that is trained on lean tools and systems. It's probably the only AI that I know of that's been trained on lean methodologies, and it helps us in our 3P process. It creates and analyzes over 36,000 layouts to optimize the best and does it in minutes.

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A team that is trying to set up a brand-new line — instead of spending days brainstorming different layouts — start with 12 optimized layouts already, thanks to the AI, that they can start tweaking. This system puts it into VR as well, so not only does it give us the layouts on the screen or on a page, but it creates something that you could put a headset on and walk around.

All of these technologies are internal to Freudenberg Medical, but we're using them to help our customers get to market faster in seamless tech transfers and to increase the quality of our manufacturing, because there is a lot of complex and manual operations, especially in electrophysiology catheters, the VR training really standardizes that human element. I think that's where we've really seen benefits from using VR.

How does Freudenberg’s VR process optimize time to market?

Maguire: In the presentation, I will explain when we're transferring training modules on VR from, let's say, Ireland where we speak English, to Costa Rica, where they speak Spanish, pretty much at the click of a button, there are language packs that you can install. The voiceover in the training and the text just automatically translates so you don't have that language barrier. Instead of one trainer trying to train 15 people, we are only limited by the number of headsets that we have. And they’re only a couple of hundred bucks. In our Ireland facility we have 47 nationalities working in one plant so we have already seen the benefit of using VR.

How do the people respond to using VR for training? Is it difficult for them to pivot to this technology?

Maguire: I think our experience so far is that, while it’s new for some people, the majority of people take to it after about five or six minutes. To use the system, you don't even need to use controllers. It's all hand tracking. So, you just basically put the headset on and you can just do it. A lot of people nowadays are so used to using phones and video games and we have elements of gamification built into it, so it gives you a nice dopamine hit when you do something right, you get a nice little ding and color splashing and so on. So those gamification elements actually make it a little bit more fun, as well. There's no fear for the operator because they're not going to damage anything. They're not going to waste material or whatever, so there's a lot less fear and they're able to experiment and learn.

Why is it especially useful for medical device manufacturing?

Maguire: I think for medical devices, especially for the manual assembly aspects, it's super important because the way we standardize is by using standard work combination sheets. We sequence every little task for the operator.

Where it's really powerful for medical devices is if an operator uses this from the outset and they do it maybe a couple of hundred times before they even hit the factory floor, the muscle memory to do it right is burned into their brain, which is really important for medical devices because the human element is one of the biggest sources of variation in manufacturing. As we know, if you have too much variation, you get a lower-quality product. I think for medical devices quality is an imperative and this technology allows us to take out one of the biggest sources of variation.

What do you hope your attendees will take away from your session?

I think the main message is that Freudenberg Medical is using VR and AI to transform our operations, and I think this is a differentiator that allows for Freudenberg Medical to get our partners high-quality products to market faster.

Who would you like to see attend your session?

Maguire: Operations team members, and of course, engineers. If there are people that are interested in tech transfers across continents, they would be interested in this. Also, business leaders of companies who want to set things up right. You have all these startups that want to set operations up right from the get-go.

Maguire will be presenting “From Design to Production: Transforming Medtech with AI and VR,” on Tuesday, Feb. 4, from 11:15 am to noon, in Room 202AB, at MD&M West. He will also be available for questions at Freudenberg Medical’s booth #2413.