Xeltis develops technology for making artificial vessels and heart valves. When they needed a professional measuring machine for quality control, they knocked on itsme's door for control software and data collection. It worked out really well. “itsme has a lot of in-house expertise, they know everything about the hardware and they can switch quickly with partners. Plus, they're flexible.”

Xeltis, a spin-off from TU Eindhoven that now employs almost 50 people, has developed a technology for artificial vessels and valves. The concept is based on Nobel Prize-winning polymer technology. Cardiovascular products made of biodegradable plastics are implanted. After insertion, endogenous cells grow on the implants, after which they slowly degrade, leaving a living blood vessel or valve. Xeltis is now in the midst of clinical trials aimed at approval for commercial application in the medical market.

Known from A to Z

Medical certification requires strict quality control. This includes measuring the wall thickness of the artificial vessels. “That is one of the parameters we have to check before we can release a device (artificial vessel, ed.)”, says operational director Aron de Groot, responsible for production and supply chain. Xeltis had built its own measuring machine to do this, but some of the hardware turned out to be out of stock and the designer's knowledge was no longer available. “We needed an upgrade and three measuring machines in total. So we started looking for parties with whom we could build a more professional and robust device.” For the hardware, Xeltis ended up with Festo, who introduced itsme as a partner for the control software and data communication.

“We looked for parties with whom we could build a more professional and robust device.”

The Eindhoven-based company created the new design itself. It selected motion control hardware from Festo, a laser measurement system from Keyence and control components from Siemens at itsme. Guillaume Schneijderberg, product specialist drives and PLCs at itsme Industrial Automation, handled the design and programming of the control and data collection. To him, the challenge was not so much in controlling the systems of the different components by means of a Siemens WinCC Unified Comfort panel. “The technological hardware from Festo and the control of all axes are known to us from A to Z. We were also in contact with Keyence about communication to and from the sensor using a Profinet module. Their software and documentation were so clear that reading out the sensor was easier than expected.”

Data communication challenge

In fact, Schneijderberg's challenge was actually the data. “Not so much the data acquisition, but putting the data down in an Excel sheet in order to make it available to Xeltis' information system.” De Groot knows why: “We have special forms into which we have to enter the generated data. Those forms must be set up in a certain way so we can automatically run an evaluation of the measurement data. It’s partly linked to the medical certification required for our products, which requires the forms to be structured in a certain way. As a result, the translation from Excel to those forms was not straightforward.” However, Schneijderberg tackled the challenge - “I learned a lot during this project” - and ultimately managed to properly programme the data communication with Xeltis' forms.

“Once programming started, things just went smoothly from there.”

Work on testing and further optimisation is currently underway, says De Groot. “There may still be usability information coming out of that from our operators that might provide some work for Guillaume.” Schneijderberg: “That’s right, I still want to undertake a final step on site in simplifying the machine controls. I also want to continue simplifying the structure of the Excel document so that the data can be imported even more effortlessly into Xeltis' documentation. Finally, I am going to create a basic machine operation manual.” Meanwhile, Xeltis has started building the first system.

All in all, the project took quite a long time, but the reason lies mainly with Xeltis, admits De Groot. “As a small company, we tend to change the prioritisation of projects every week. “Once Guillaume started programming, things just went smoothly from there.” What helped was that the requirements did not change during the project. De Groot: “In the beginning, however, it was still about the interpretation of the requirements. That's always an issue; do we really understand each other's interpretation? We managed to work that out well in this case.”

Heart for the Business

The measuring machine is a one-off project, but De Groot already has ideas for a similar project. “That will also involve an application in our cleanroom for production. The hardware will be more or less the same, but it will require new software. If we get internal approval for this, I'd be happy to knock on itsme's door again in a heartbeat, to make use of their knowledge.” After all, De Groot has enjoyed the collaboration. “As well as I could expect. They translated our requirements into software programming. We are now in the final stages of completion. What I've seen so far has given me the confidence that things will work out. itsme has a lot of in-house expertise, they know everything about the Festo hardware and they can switch quickly with partners like Keyence and Siemens. Plus, they are very flexible. If Guillaume programmed something and we still had questions about it, they were quickly resolved.” In short, itsme has heart for customers like Xeltis.

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