Medical Devices
MPC manufactures custom-engineered urethane parts for the medical device industry — custom casters & wheels, bushings, bumpers & vibration mounts, gantry rollers, transport & conductive rollers, foot pads, and micro-molded gripper pads that outperform standard parts.
— Recurring Problems in the Medical Device Industry
Flat-spotting
Injection-molded plastic wheels and casters flat-spot when parked and add noise.
Wear & marking
Standard rollers and bumpers take constant motion and impact, wearing quickly and leaving unwanted marks.
Static
Charge builds up in cleanrooms and sensitive electronic equipment, and buildup can compromise sample testing.
Particle shed
Rubber sheds particles, marks surfaces, causing performance failures, failing cleanroom limits, and compromising regulatory compliance.
Costly downtime
A worn part on a testing or diagnostic system fails, requiring service calls and costly downtime.
— The Differentiator
Where standard parts fall short
Engineers reach for standard metal, rubber, or catalog parts — and each falls short in medical mobility, prosthetics, lab automation, and medical imaging devices:
- Metal parts are bulky, prone to rust and wear, and can be noisy
- Rubber sheds particles, develops flat spots under load, and wears quickly under constant use
- Catalog injection-molded plastic parts wear, crack, and develop noise under constant use
- None can be customized to the combination of durometer, traction, dampening, geometry, and wear life the device needs, and stock suppliers offer no engineering support
The Result: System failures, customer complaints, costly downtime from lost sales, service calls, and replacement parts on high-value devices.
— Applications
Where custom urethane is already at work
These are the medical devices MPC works in most often. Because every part is custom formulated for the application rather than selected from a range, the list is a starting point rather than a limit — if a component on your equipment keeps failing, we can explore if MPC’s engineered polyurethanes can be a solution.
Sustained loads, aggressive washdowns and cleanroom requirements break standard components. Custom-engineered polyurethanes don’t.
Years of daily usage wear out standard parts. Custom-engineered polyurethane components last.
High-cycle gripping, sealing and rolling wear out standard parts. Custom-engineered polyurethane parts hold up.
Sustained load, vibration, and constant motion break standard parts. Custom-engineered polyurethane parts hold up.
Talk it through with a polyurethane expert who’ll tell you what’s achievable and what is not.
— HOW TO WORK WITH US
From concept to scaled production
Connect With Us
Share your application, performance needs, or a part you want to improve.
Collaborate on Design
Our engineers will help optimize materials and geometry for manufacturability.
Prototype & Refine
We produce samples using our proprietary polyurethane formulations for testing.
Move to Production
Once approved, we move to scalable molding with full quality assurance.
— Case Studies
Proven in production
Customers come to MPC with a component that keeps failing, or a new part that has to be designed from scratch. These are the results — less downtime, lower cost, and products that reached the market on schedule.
Static control
A warehouse automation OEM was losing uptime to static discharge and roller wear in its AMRs. This case study shows how MPC engineered a conductive roller that reduced ESD faults by roughly 70% and delivered 2.5× the roller life.
Contamination control
A semiconductor automation manufacturer needed rollers that were cleanroom-compliant, long-wearing, and static-controlled all at once. This case study shows how MPC’s custom conductive formulation passed ISO cleanroom testing and ran roughly 4× longer than the plastic rollers it replaced, with zero contamination events.
Load and continuous duty
A continuous-duty robotics manufacturer kept losing rollers to flat-spotting under constant load and start-stop motion. This case study shows how MPC’s custom roller eliminated the flat spots and delivered about 2× the service life, cutting the unplanned maintenance that was slowing the line.
— Solutions
Common problems we solve
These are the problems custom urethane technology is most often specified to solve, across every kind of industrial equipment.
Paper, film, board and packaging have to be gripped, moved and released without slipping or marking. Urethane contact surfaces are formulated with the coefficient of friction tuned to the media, and hold it consistently unit to unit.
Wheels, rollers and drive elements carry load and transmit motion every shift. Cast urethane holds its profile and runs quietly where rubber goes out of round and plastic wears through.
Hard stops and rigid components pass shock straight into the machine. Urethane and urethane foam absorb impact through controlled compression, without slowing the system.
Seals and gaskets have to hold under pressure, chemical exposure and repeated cycles. Custom urethane is formulated to the fluid, the pressure and the temperature the seal will actually experience in operation.
Insulating parts build static charges around sensitive electronics. MPC’s patented metal salt conductive urethane technology dissipates it uniformly through the whole part, and keeps doing it as the part wears.
That’s exactly the conversation we like to have – get a polyurethane expert on a quick call to pressure-test your idea before you commit.
— FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What material stops flat-spotting on equipment sitting under a sustained load?
A cast polyurethane. Polyurethane provides a low compression set, the root cause of flat spots, without debonding or peeling like plastics, resulting in extended component life.
What material can dissipate static without shedding particles and stop buildup?
A conductive polyurethane. MPC’s Durethane® C is a metal-salt conductive material that dissipates static without shedding particles, customized to your ESD target, eliminating buildup and damage to equipment.
What material can be customized to a specific durometer, performance requirements, and even micro-molded to sub-mm geometries?
Cast polyurethane. Parts are customized to each system’s geometry, durometer, and performance requirements, with engineering support that catalog suppliers can’t provide.