Effets de l'utilisation de la fabrication additive (impression 3D) sur la fabrication des aides techniques (orthèses, prothèses) dans le milieu hospitalier pédiatrique

Abstract

Marie Enfant Rehabilitation Centre affiliated to Ste-Justine Hospital wants to offer worldclass technical aids services (TAS) for pediatric populations. These services will eventually be located in the future pavilion of the Technopole de la Cité internationale de la réadaptation pédiatrique de Montréal whose goal is to prevent, heal and treat children’s handicaps. To achieve this ambitious goal, the fabrication process and the equipment must be modernised. In this context, the managers of Marie Enfant Rehabilitation Centre want to know if the technical aids (TA) fabrication process could be improved by the integration of additive manufacturing (AM) technology. The principal objective is to identify the operating conditions related to using the AM technology in the fabrication of technical aids. The goal is to meet this objective in identifying the opportunities and problems related to the fabrication of technical aids using AM technology and to find a suitable answer for these problems. The Design Science Research (DSR) approach was chosen because it suggests developing artefacts that address problems that stem from an organizational context. Two (2) artefacts where developed to help in the decision process when eventually integrating AM into the TAS: artefact 1) Model identifying inputs and outputs from the production process and artefact 2) Cost model. According to the literature review and identification of the inputs and outputs, AM technology will become a standard in the fabrication of TA in the future, but it would be premature to proceed with implementing this technology in the production context, at this stage, at Marie Enfant Rehabilitation Centre. It is suggested to work on a production process that will allow a suitable integration of AM technology, to wait for the equipment and materials to be more refined before proceeding to a production launch and to build various scenarios, based on the proposed cost model, in order to better understand and guide the costs incurred in a future integration of AM technology.

Date	21 Dec 2017
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Sylvie Doré (Supervisor) & Marc Paquet (Co-supervisor)