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Headquartered in Sweden, Trelleborg has been doing business in the U.S. for decades, with Trelleborg Sealing Solutions for the Americas based in Fort Wayne, Ind. But until last June, the company had a limited presence in key areas of the high-growth health care and medical market in the Americas. So Trelleborg went out and bought privately held, family- owned Specialty Silicone Fabricators (SSF). "Trelleborg Sealing Solutions has been in the medical market for many years but our offering, though at the forefront of technology, was primarily for healthcare equipment," explains Drew Rogers, global director, Healthcare and Medical for Trelleborg Sealing Solutions. "The acquisition of SSF allowed us to bring into our portfolio solutions that could be implanted into a patient, enhancing our already established global offering," adds Rogers. "Trelleborg has now broad- ened its capabilities to tap into a growing industry." Trelleborg's medical and healthcare operations in the Americas are focused on silicone—with both LSR and HCR capacity—and form part of a global network for extruded and molded products in its other markets. The acquisition of SSF enhanced Trelleborg's capabilities with what Rogers describes as "a clearly differenti- ated product line." He elaborates, "The implantable footprint is really the major step that Trelleborg has taken. SSF had a long history and a lot of expertise in implantable devices; 60% of what we manufacture are implantables." Trelleborg's healthcare and medical segment is supported by various plants located across the world. Through the SSF acquisition, Trelleborg gained three additional manufacturing facilities. One is in Paso Robles, Calif., a 102,000 ft² plant that is ISO 9001 and 13485 certified and houses ISO 8 and ISO 7 cleanrooms. Trelleborg does a majority of its medical parts processing in Paso Robles, with an undisclosed number of extrusion lines for tubing and sheet. Trelleborg's second facility dedicated to medical is in Tustin, Calif., and is registered with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a finished medical-device manufac- turer. Also ISO 13485 certified, this 55,000 ft² plant has ISO Class 8 and Class 7 cleanrooms. In Tustin, the company does product assembly, packaging, sterilization and drug-device work; the Tustin facility is licensed to work with active phar- maceutical ingredients (API), meaning that it can produce tubing that elutes anti-microbial agents, for example. Trelleborg's third medical manufacturing plant is in Elk Grove, Mich. At this site, dip coating operations are used to produce minimally invasive surgical instruments. CUTTING ITS TEETH IN EXTRUSION The majority of what the company makes in Paso Robles are custom components. On the tubing side, they can range from a few hundred feet to several thousand. About half of what the company extrudes is coiled, the other half cut to length. Tubing extrusion equipment is moved around to accommodate other production processes as needed. "But extrusion is our differentiator," states Rogers. "Extrusion is where we cut our teeth." Trelleborg offers high-precision, tight tolerance silicone extrusion tubes in wall thickness of 0.004 in. at excruciatingly tight tolerances of ±0.001 in. About 10 years ago, the company developed its own extrusion tooling process, called GeoTrans (short for geometric transition). In this technology, components within the die can be moved on the fly to change tubing geometry, to transition from single to multiple lumens, or even to split a single tube into two in a "Y" shapes. The technology eliminates secondary assembly steps. GeoTrans technology is used on Trelleborg's balloon cath- eters, bump and tapered tubes. It is also deployed on what the processor calls its Material Transition tubes, in which one silicone material transitions to another over the length of the tube, where different mechanical properties, additives, color, opacity, radiopacity, and durometer are required. A typical application "The implantable footprint is really the major step that Trelleborg has taken. SSF had a long history and a lot of expertise in these devices." Visit the Tubing and Medical Zones. Learn more at PTonline.com QUESTIONS ABOUT MEDICAL TUBING? The Trelleborg plant in Paso Robles, Calif., is where the company does the majority of its medical parts manufacturing. @plastechmag 49 Plastics Technology On-Site Trelleborg Sealing Solutions