Best-in-Class Bone Mill

The Story

Developing a surgical device to fill a portfolio gap.

Spinal fusion surgery often requires that bone be harvested from the patient, reduced to a small and consistent size, and reintroduced into the patient to promote bone growth. Stryker identified an opportunity to replace this painstaking, manual process with an efficient powered solution. Stryker challenged M3 to design a best in class bone mill for surgeons and scrub nurses that met their needs and fit within their existing work-flow. The critical technical issues were how to consistently mill the desired sized bone chips while ensuring maximum cell viability and integrating with Stryker’s existing capital equipment products.

Our Solution

Determining "Best-in-Class"

  1. Working through our stakeholder centered design process, the team observed surgeons, scrub techs and nurses in the O.R. environment through the bone harvesting process as it was being performed. M3 quickly realized that the critical user issue was that the process yielded inconsistent results.
  2. Contextual research identified key interaction points and develop an optimized work-flow before focusing on form.
  3. Multiple bone reduction techniques and product architectures were evaluated to determine the milling solution. M3 built prototypes and ran extensive lab experiments to determine the disc cutter’s “sweet-spot” requirement to achieve optimal bone consistency.
"The award winning Mill is a testament to the partnership between M3 Design and Stryker. Great people working together deliver great results!" Mickey Noonan VP of Global Product Excellence at Stryker Instruments
01 02
The Details

Bone Mill

Through research, M3 identified key user needs, interaction points, and optimal work-flow. M3 explored multiple form factor and workflow concepts that met the product’s design and usability criteria. In parallel, multiple bone reduction techniques and product architectures were evaluated and tested to determine the single cutting action milling solution that would consistently reduce the bone to the desired size. M3 built usability and functional prototypes and ran extensive lab experiments which resulted in the final product design.

surgical team using stryker bone mill
02 02
The Details

Bone Mill

After multiple and extensive design reviews, the design was delivered to Stryker and integrated into their supply chain. The pre-assembled blades in three blade sizes help make setup and operation fast and efficient and allow for customized bone granulation for a wider range of procedures.

The Results

A "Best-in-Class" Powered Bone Mill

  1. The patented Stryker Mill efficiently and consistently reduces harvested autologous bone into appropriately sized particles with a single pass cutting action while providing consistent sized bone that is viable.
  2. The milling operation is now performed with much less effort and time by the surgical team.
  3. The resulting Bone Mill sales were triple Stryker’s original expectations for the first year and shut the door on competitors who were trying to use Stryker’s previous lack of a bone mill product to enter Stryker accounts.
Up Next

A Design Language for Creating Solutions From Diverse Brands

View the Case Study

Contact Us

How can M3 Design accelerate your product development and experience designs?

Let’s Talk
Close
Close
Scroll to the bottom to agree