At Clarius, we believe the handheld wireless scanner is the next step in ultrasound miniaturization.
Clearly, this trend has benefits for the end user. What is less apparent is the related improvements to the manufacturing process.
To get a better understanding of the phenomenon, we talked to James Chung, our director of manufacturing. James has 13 years of experience in ultrasound, starting as a manufacturing technician at Ultrasonix. Having worked on the first PC-based ultrasound system, and now on a wireless smartphone-based system, James is at the cutting edge of the rapidly-changing ultrasound landscape.
From a manufacturing standpoint, Clarius is very efficiently designed,” said James. “It lets us do a lot more with a lot less.”
He explained that the compact size of the Clarius Ultrasound Scanner is a huge advantage over the typical cart-based system when it comes to production. “It means I don’t need a large workspace or storage area to build our products because all the parts are smaller and it takes less time to build a system.”
Since Clarius is elegantly and simply designed, we are confident about our ability to build a quality product. “Other machines have more than a hundred parts, ours has fewer than 30. That reduces the chances for error,” James remarked.
Design innovation at Clarius extends beyond the hardware. James explained that the Clarius app allows for automated testing, something not possible with traditional machines. “In a regular ultrasound system, you need a human pressing the buttons and turning the knobs, to make sure everything works. For Clarius, the ‘buttons’ are software, so we can just run a test program. It takes 15 minutes.”
Clarius is a significant step forward not only in the clinic, but also on the production floor. James is enthusiastic about how far ultrasound technology has progressed. “Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to put this much power into such a compact device. We’ve come so far and I’m excited about what the future holds for ultrasound miniaturization.”
