Terumo Neuro: Pilot-Line Fixtures

R&D Engineering Intern (NPI), TCAT R&D Engineering team, Terumo Neuro (formerly MicroVention), Aliso Viejo, CA. Summer 2025.

Deployed

Raised razor blade life from 3 cuts to 15 and cut tack-weld cleaning time 89%. Designed and deployed 5+ resin-printed (SLA) fixtures on the pilot line for a new neurovascular catheter.

Labels, product names, and part numbers blurred under NDA.

My role.Designed each fixture, then assembled and tested it on the floor with the technicians who use it.

Fig. 1.Assembling a fixture at the bench, part blurred.

Problem

The original cutting fixture wore through a razor blade every 3 cuts, and weld spatter stuck to the tack-welding fixture.

Fixture design

5+ fixtures for cutting, tack welding, and valve press-fitting, each developed with technician and operator input. Modeled in SolidWorks, built by SLA (stereolithography) resin printing and machining, and revised through ECNs in the PLM system.

Cutting fixture

Rebuilt the dilator cutting fixture around a more durable razor standard, with a toggle that flips between the two cut lengths instead of a full tooling swap
Cut setup time while keeping positional accuracy and repeatability

Design rationale: fewer blade swaps are safer, save technician handling time, and raise throughput.

Fig. 2.Rebuilt dilator cutting fixture with the toggle-clamp locator.

15 cutsper razor blade, up from 3

80%fewer blade changes

Fig. 3.Toggle portion of the cutting fixture, CAD simplified for NDA.

Tack-weld fixture

Reworked the tack-welding fixture with machined copper inserts and grooved shafts so weld spatter would not stick

Design rationale: some weld spatter is inevitable, so the copper inserts let technicians tack weld at different sites on the fixture.

89%less tack-weld cleaning time

Process engineering

Wrote and revised 9+ Manufacturing Process (MP) documents for transfer to an overseas line, adding observed failure modes, operator feedback, and updated fixture interfaces
Helped plan, set up, and interpret 20+ design-of-experiment (DOE) trials on a coating defect, correlating 9-point thermocouple data with defect locations across 6 input variables
Ran thermal mapping validation of temperature uniformity on R&D and production ovens (thermocouple arrays, Keysight DAQ); presented results weekly to R&D, quality, and manufacturing
Coordinated 25+ engineering change notices (ECNs) through Windchill

Status: the coating DOE was unfinished when my internship ended.

ToolsSolidWorks, SLA printing, Windchill PLM, ECNs, Design of experiments, Thermocouples, Keysight DAQ, Thermal mapping