Trulife UK invited us to work with them on a new approach to their carbon fibre Ankle Foot Orthoses (AFO) product range. AFOs help to control the position and motion of the ankle, provide support to compensate for weakness, and correct the function of the ankle. The company’s vision was to have a flexible and efficient production platform for new and existing AFO designs.

What we did

We combined anthropometric research data relating to people's sizes, and combined it with Trulife’s in-depth knowledge of the market, to create a sophisticated CAD framework that could easily be modified to create a wide range of mould forms.

To develop the forms we used our in-house prototyping facilities to create a set of moulds for testing and evaluation. Trulife verified these through a series of trials with end users.

The result

The new process is now operating at Trulife’s factory and is providing a flexible production platform that has halved production time and significantly reduced energy consumption. The mouldings are of higher quality and more accurately reflect the human form.