Follow each plate, screw and stem from bar stock to laser mark and sterile pack.

An implant leaves the factory with a name that matters later: the size, the alloy, the lot and a laser-marked code. A surgeon, a hospital store and a regulator may all ask where that exact plate or screw came from, and the factory must answer from records made on the day.

The path is long, and no single desk sees all of it. Titanium and cobalt chrome bar comes in with its mill paper. Swiss-type turning, milling and drilling follow, then deburring, polishing, anodising or passivation, ultrasonic cleaning, laser marking, inspection and pouch sealing. Each step may sit in a different cell or with an outside vendor.

Orders arrive as implant sets for a hospital or distributor: a range of locking plate lengths, cortical and cancellous screws, tibial nails or femoral stems, with instrument trays to match. Planners check bar by heat number and grade, then release lot cards to the turning and milling cells. Operators run first-off checks on thread form and bore diameter. Inspection then logs values taken on a coordinate measuring machine and an optical comparator, which the quality head reviews before the lot moves to finishing.

Parts then go for polishing, passivation or anodising, sometimes at an outside processor. After ultrasonic cleaning in a controlled area, each implant is laser marked with size and lot. Sealing happens in a clean zone. Pouches then go for sterilisation. Sales staff need to know what is on the shelf in each size. Sets are assembled for hospital loan stock, then followed until the tray comes back with every plate and screw counted.