AWT Labeling & Packaging

Lately I’ve received an increasing number of new and ‘critical’ label tests and requirements that we need to deal with. As we all know, in terms of device cost percentage and engineering time and energy spent, the label is the proverbial flea on the dogs’ tail. Yet the label is still a critical component that […]

First of all I apologize for the time between blog posts. I’ve been reminded of this fact a number of times by our Global Marketing Czarina (GMC but not the truck company), a relentless woman that actually threatened me with a device wired to my ignition system some morning if I didn’t get one out. […]

Healthpack 2012 in sunny Albuquerque, NM is in the books. The two winners in the informal brewpub and dive diners competition were both exceptional. The beer winner was a dead heat between the Elevated IPA and the Square Root of Elevated Bitter from La Cumbre. Both were not only exceptional ales but both were available […]

Specifying label stock for your terminally sterilized package can bite you  in the derriere’ if you are not a bit of a pool player.  In other words you need to think ahead a couple steps, have some background history at your disposal, and be willing to brave the disapproving gaze of the quality folks, who […]

Our Minnesota senators and representatives on the Congressional Technology Caucus, Democrat and Republican, have signed a bipartisan open letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg asking for, in effect, a streamlined,  more flexible and transparent FDA approval process.  Any time that Michelle Bachmann and Al Franken agree on something, the evidence of a problem must be […]

We attended a medical device manufacturing event in San Antonio a couple weeks back.  The organizers were either smart or sadistic when they chose the venue, depending on your point of view.  We were held captive in a golf resort northwest of town, a $40 cab ride (one way) from the earthly pleasures of Riverwalk.  […]

One of my avocations when I’m not completely immersed in the wonderful world of medical device labeling is kayaking.  Not the shoot the rapids type of whitewater kayaking in a boat that resembles a giant clown shoe, but sea kayaking on Lake Superior for multi day trips in long, skinny boats.  We don’t always find […]

A few years back I had a couple  hernias repaired using surgical mesh, a product much like those rolls of garden mesh that keep hilly areas on your property from eroding.  When asked in post op to describe my level of pain from 1 to 10, I was unable to come up with a number […]

In the last 6 months I’ve received more calls and questions on shelf life of label stock than I have in the past 5 years.  They range from the request for information and data to the frenzied call that production discovered that their label stock ‘expired’ a month ago and the line will be shut […]

Foreign material or FM can be loosely defined as something that’s not supposed to be present or part of the base material that’s  being produced.  The fact is that foreign material is always present in everything that is produced, no matter how much we wish that it wasn’t or how strictly we word our engineering […]