Cell & Gene Therapy Instrument Improvements

Problem

The FerroSelect instrument needed design changes across several fronts at once: EMC compliance, device hygiene for a lab environment, and a safer, more reliable process for welding its consumables.

Process

On EMC, I worked through a series of design changes to bring the device within compliance. For hygiene, I redesigned the front panel to be thin and easy to clean, working with the client, an industrial designer, and external manufacturing providers to get there. The instrument handles several distinct fluid types at once, blood, waste, separation, and ferro products, so we treated the panel as a plan view of the whole process, laying out the tube-loading instructions directly on it in a way that mapped to how the products actually moved through the machine. It became less of a label and more of a guide to using the instrument correctly. On the consumable side, I developed a new welding workflow along with the hardware to support it, then verified the design against strict pressure testing safety requirements, including checking weld integrity under thermal expansion using SolidWorks simulation.

Outcome

The instrument met its EMC compliance targets, gained a genuinely easier-to-clean front panel, and got a safer, better-verified consumable welding process. It was a good example of how a handful of small, specific design changes can add up to a much more usable product.