Quality Jobs!

Hi everyone! I thought I would take advantage of MyScienceJobs this weeks to give you an update on the Engineering end of the Medical Device jobs.

Unfortunately the Kitting Director position has been put on hold due to restructuring, but nevertheless the

• Software Quality Engineer

role is still open amongst others!

If you have a background in Software Validation or QA Software or something similar in a high volume manufacturing plant/ indeed Medical Device then we want to hear from you!

Get in touch!

Celebrating Medical Device Jobs!

Good Morning good people of the Medical Device World!

I have another two jobs in for Med Device!

• Software Quality Engineer – Munster
• Aseptic Supervisor – Munster

Once again, should you want to have a look at the full job description then please forward your CV to elaine@jackiebrownmedical.ie or goto

http://www.jackiebrownmedical.ie/jobs_ireland.php?url=jobs

for more information!

Have you Got What it Takes

Are proficient with Procedural Kits?

Have you a long standing background in QA/ RA in the Medical Device industry?

Are you up to date with Product Development and CE Marking?

We may have the perfect job for you!

We have an urgent requirement for a Procedural Kitting Director in the Midlands

• Candidates must be Degree qualified in a relevant Engineering/ QA subject
  MBA qualified is a distinct advantage
• 5 years minimum experience required in Medical Devices
• Reporting to the VP of Marketing & Product Development, candidates must have product development experience, ideally in QA/RA or procedural kits.
• Must be flexible and willing to travel overseas often
• This is a permanent Medical Device Kitting Director position

If this is for you get in touch!

I would love to hear from you!

Plastics People Technical skills continue to be in demand

Plastic people -or those persons associated with manufacturing utilising polymer plastics such as PET continue to be in demand in the medical device manufacturing industry.

Positions for catagories such as Moulding Engineer, Manufacturing Engineer, or Production Manager with knowledge of injection moulding are keenly saught after by companies such as KCI, Vistakon and Mergon as these professionals are at the heart of their R&D and CIP stratagies which require cutting edge technology and High Value Added Knowledge and expertise that place Ireland at the same levels of Quality and New Product Development as  Singapore, Germany and the US.

Our only weakness it would seem is there just are not enough qualified engineers and managers with plastic knowledge- perhaps we need to stretch our educational resources further to meet the demands of this increasingly lucrative sector?

Plastics and composite Polymers producing advanced forms

Polymer and Plastic Injection Moulding Engineers are in increasing demand in Irish manufacturing and greater pressures are now on  manufacturing engineers as the drive for high tech goods such as medical devices, automotive, telecommunications  and IT hardware devices continues to increase as the applications for technology move towards convergence.

For instance, not so long ago telephones and cameras would not have been identified as mutually combineable products but today few people would consider buying a mobile phone without an integral camera. Similarly we are now finding that its the little things can be the difference when selling a car. These are sometimes innocuous  items such as an Ipod Port or the external or internal dash or bodywork mouldings which have been designed  on computer to provide either the most efficient aerodynamic profile or the optimum ergonomic interior for driver and passenger.

At the heart of all these items are polymers and plastics that consider touch, colour and in some case smell, providing product designers with hitherto previously unrealisable avenues for selling the end product whether its the latest lightweight Ipod or the fastest, safest  and most fuel efficient cars on the road today.

Injection Moulded Plastics-Accurate and Affordable Products

Moulding your future is probably what some professions have slightly more control of than others. For instance of most science jobs, tooling and plastic injection moulding has certainly got a lot of opportunities to offer.

Within the medical devices manufacturing sector alone which has an immense product base, plastic moulded parts constitute a major proportion of the manufacturing process with everything from Contact Lenses to Kidney Dialysis Control Casings to, Catheters and complete electronic control assemblies.

Needless to say Moulding Engineers, Polymer Engineers, Process Technicians and Supervisors, Product Development Engineers, Tool Makers and Tool Designers play a vital role in bringing these products from concept and design to reality. Additionally they are fundamental in making sure a product is viable to bring to market and offers the customer or end user what they require. 

A functional, robust, safe and durable product that will be cheap enough to manufacture as a function of its simplicity of design and its material flow characteristics which ensure that maximum yield and through put is achieved meeting the needs again of the customer that seeks to sell these products into the growing global medical devices and healthcare markets.

Medical Device Product R&D

What does it take to be Head of R&D?  To be head of R&D in a major medical device company, the ideal candidate for this role generally needs to be capable of leading engineers, scientists and technicians usally being cogniscent of efforts taking place at various sites both at home in Ireland and around the globe. They also need to communicate effectively between the sales and marketing front end of the business as well as the R&D Facilities.

Commercially R&D Managers need to review the market competition and to give the R&D function pragmatic, realistic and practical product projects to bring them to the market. Within the medical device sector this will also involve working closely with doctors and key opinion leaders to identify and progress new technologies, to improve existing product designs and to seek new clinical applications for existing technologies.

R& D Managers direct engineering operations and carry out scientific assessments of new technologies, products, concepts and applications and solutions. They work very closely with QA/Regulatory affairs to define the transfer over of these products to manufacturing operations. R&D Managers also heavily influence the tactical and strategic direction of the companies they work for through the sharing of their technical knowledge and the guidance and influence they have on people, programs and technology

Polymer applications appear to be limited only by our imagination

Polymer Engineering is one of the more exotic engineering disciplines which has expanded and developed a critical function within the medical device manufacturing sector in the past 15 years.

What is polymer engineering? Polymer Engineering is a field of engineering that deals with the analysis, design and modification of polymer materials and involves aspects of a variety of the pertochem industry including structure and characterisation as well as compounding, properties and processing of polymers and their applications.

These are then divide into thermoplastics and thermosets, the latter being consisting of resins and polyesters which can be used in composite materials which have applications in aerospace and automotive products etc.

Thermoplastics tend to have low density characteristics including transparencywhich makes them ideal for medical devices such as blood bags, syringes or contact lenses (PET or polypropylene).

Elastomers are ploymers with low tensile moduli and are excellent for vibration absorbtion and damping and have applications in areas of products such as Tyres.

Recruitment prospects then for polymer engineers are quiet good even despite the economic downturn as several industries have considerable demand in their manufacturing processes for polymer or process engineers who are key to the manufacture of advanced medical devices or automotive components or indeed for further scientific Research and Development.

Medical Devices

Welcome again to myscience jobs. Today we will look at the Medical Devices manufacturing industry and the growth in Medical devices job opportunities.

What are medical devices and why has there been such growth?  Medical devices consist of an extremely wide variety of products used with a medical purpose in patients applied to such aspects as diagnostics, therapy or surgical and the effect is generally physical.

They can be as simple as tongue depressors or  as complex as minute plastic components such as filter components used in kidney dialysis or as intricate as x-ray machines. Growth then has followed swiftly as a direct result of rapid advances in science and scientific discoveries which have in turn led to new applications of advanced materials; for instance, plastics or exotic polymers which have in turn resulted in the manufacturability of minute vascular components which to manufacture  less than a decade ago were undreamt of in term the size and quality that are now commonplace.

Further still we have seen the application of plastics in the manufacture of products expand to as diverse a range of products as gas permeable contact lenses, prosthetic limbs, monitoring devices, pacemakers and cheap disposable hypodermics  which can now be manufactured in the millions. This has resulted in a massive reduction in cost, allowing access to clean, safe, healthcare / medical devices previously beyond the financial affordability of many people who suffer from long term illnesses requiring for instance  the application of insuline, morphine or other life term medicines.

Small wonder then that Ireland has seen an explosion in the number of medical device manufacturing companies which have decided to capitalise on our local skill base  and opted to set up in Ireland. These multinationals range from Boston Scientific, to Johnson and Johnson. The consequence of these companies opening here then is a corresponding increase in demand for skilled polymer/process engineers,  materials and quality research specialists  amongst others to service these state of the art manufacturing facilities that continue to thrive despite a global economic downturn.

Opportunities do exist for those who are qualified and experienced, and for those Irish agencies who are specialists in the fields of  medical recruitment, recruiting for moulding technicians and process engineers amongst others, myscience jobs can proudly say that Jackie Brown Medical is well placed as a lead specialist life science recruitment firm in Irish Science Jobs for recruiting for the expanding  medical device manufacuring market that continues to offer careers with the potential for professional growth.