Advances in medical technologies result in increased demand for Filtermist units

Oil mist filtration and extraction units are used around the world in a number of manufacturing sectors where oil mist is produced as a by-product of metalworking and other production processes. Global growth in industries including aerospace and medical supplies has led to an increased regional demand for machine tools and associated products as evidenced in a recent installation completed by Filtermist’s Chinese distributor, En-Creative.

En-Creative has installed twenty nine Filtermist units for medical products company, Tianjin Zheng Tian Medical Instrument Co. Ltd, (ZhengTian) at its brand new factory in Tianjin, a fast growing coastal city two hours south east of Beijing, China.

The new factory is located on the Tianjin Airport Industrial Park, which has been built next to the city’s airport with the intention of attracting more hi-tech manufacturing industries to the region. Other global companies with a presence on the site include Airbus, UTC and Lufthansa.

ZhengTian designs, manufactures and distributes a wide range of orthopaedic devices, including metal bone plates & screws used by thousands of surgeons, both in China and overseas – it is viewed as one of the most important companies operating in the area.

The company’s products are manufactured from a range of incredibly hard exotic materials including titanium, platinum and stainless steel which are machined at very high speeds using substantial amounts of coolant (in this instance, neat oil) to achieve the precision finish demanded by the medical industry.

The Filtermist units were installed on Tsugami and Tornos machines to filter and collect large quantities of oil mist generated as a result of both the speed of the machining process, and the volume of cutting fluid used. Filtermist’s compact units use proven centrifugal technology which collects the oil mist and returns clean air to the workshop environment. The oil collected is piped back to the machine tool to be re-used – reducing coolant consumption and saving money.

Ten more Filtermist units have been ordered for use on another line of machines due for delivery shortly and En Creative is confident that more units will be ordered in the future.

En-Creative Managing Director, Hanming Lee, says, “ZhengTian approached en-Creative about Filtermist following a recommendation from one of its customers. We have developed a very good relationship with the pioneering company - we recently met with ZhengTian’s Purchasing Manager, Feng-guiman, and he was extremely pleased with both the quality of the Filtermist units and the after-sales service the company has received from En-Creative.”

Medical is one of a number of growth areas for Filtermist’s distributors – significant increases in sales in this sector been reported in the UK and Ireland as well as China, and Filtermist is confident that this trend is set to continue.

Filtermist International Managing Director, James Stansfield, says, “Advances in medical technologies, fuelled by global demand, are happening at a phenomenal rate. The need to achieve the highest standard, precision finish is imperative and, whilst the machine tools used to manufacture medical products are becoming more and more sophisticated, they all use traditional metalworking processes that rely on cutting fluids and wherever coolant is used, hazardous oil mist is generated as a by-product.”

Filtermist units are currently sold in more than 50 countries worldwide through a network of global distributors. There are currently more than 150,000 Filtermist units in daily operation worldwide - China is Filtermist’s second largest single market in South East Asia after Singapore.

In recognition of the growing importance of Chinese markets to Filtermist’s business, the progressive company has invested in a dedicated Chinese website, www.filtermist.cn, which contains all of the information available on the global website, translated into Chinese to ensure easy accessibility.

Manufacturing in China is performing particularly well as the country aims to move away from its global reputation for producing low cost, low quality products. The 2013 China International Machine Tool Show (CIMT) held earlier this year was extremely well attended, providing an excellent opportunity for En-Creative to raise awareness of the Filtermist brand amongst China’s manufacturers.