Software Solutions for Unique Needs: Digital Tails CPQ System for Medical Equipment Customization

Our expertise at Digital Tails Group spans across industries, but we take particular pride in our ability to develop solutions for complex high-risk use cases. We’ve had the opportunity to design and develop a custom CPQ solution for manufacturing of medical equipment designed for individuals with disabilities, where each piece of equipment must be precisely customized to fit unique physical and medical needs.

Regular methods for dealing with such cases have a very high ratio of inefficiencies, errors, and delays. For the healthcare sector, it’s a big barrier for both providers and patients. In this article we want to introduce our solution with an integrated advanced 3D configurator, which has proven to be helpful to automate the process of ordering and manufacturing custom medical equipment for patients with special needs.

The Challenge: Complexity of Custom Medical Equipment

Designing medical equipment for individuals with disabilities is not a one-size-fits-all process. The unique needs of every patient require each piece of equipment to be customized, which covers hundreds of parameters. Anthropometry (body measurements), structural features such as posture or spinal curvature, the specific requirements of the treatment process, and personal preferences must come together to create equipment that fits perfectly.

The complexity of this customization process means that even minor errors can have significant consequences, which will ultimately affect the patient's quality of life and the equipment’s effectiveness.

Regularly, this process involves an overwhelming amount of manual paperwork, and doctors need to fill out 30+ pages long forms to specify every detail. Person responsible for filling up the documentation has to be trained, and still, errors were quite common. Errors are usually only discovered at later stages of manufacturing, or, which is even more frequent, after the equipment is delivered to the patient. This leads to returns, delays, rework, and communication bottlenecks among doctors, distributors, and manufacturers.

For a solution that can be fully automated, no one has to risk such inefficiencies to not only hinder timely delivery of equipment, but also create frustration for everyone involved, especially for patients in urgent need of personalized solutions.

Our Solution and Development Process: CPQ Platform with 3D Configurator Integration

Our client was a medical equipment manufacturer with over 30 years of experience, specializing in creating highly customized products for individuals with disabilities. Each piece of equipment they produce is specifically designed and manufactured for the patient's unique physical and medical needs, requiring adjustments of hundreds of parameters. It’s a long and complicated process that calls for solutions that would simplify the process, minimize errors and accelerate the production. To meet this challenge, we developed a suitable CPQ platform integrated with a 3D configurator.

Process:

We began by digitizing all product parameters, relationships, and dependencies, transforming the manual, error-prone process into an automated system. This included:

- creating digital models of the equipment

- mapping out the interactions between components

- designing user interfaces suitable for doctors and medical specialists

Once we formalized these processes into a digital workflow, we minimized the potential for errors and reduced the time it takes to configure and order custom medical equipment.

Our solution covered these key features:

Product selection tool – This tool allows healthcare providers to input basic patient data, such as gender, age, weight, and muscle tone, to quickly generate a list of suitable components. Doctors can choose from pre-configured options and make minor customizations. For some less complex cases, this tool is enough to order equipment, because it handles basic personalization.

MAT assessment – MAT stands for Medical Assessment Tool, and it’s used to input detailed patient data, including diagnosis, physical condition, and specific needs. There are over 40 fields covering everything from mobility to living conditions that need to be captured and reflected in the equipment design. MAT provides a very high level of precision, and when used for customized solutions, it significantly improves patient comfort and treatment outcomes.

3D configurator – This is the core of the solution, which offers full control over every aspect of the equipment. Here it’s possible to visualize the product in real-time, making adjustments to dimensions, materials, accessories, and other features. The configurator allows the user to either customize pre-selected components or build equipment from scratch, and every modification is instantly reflected in a 3D model.

Overcoming Visualization Challenges

We have dealt with a significant challenge in building this solution, which was related to simulating body parameters for people with disabilities. There are standard models available based on average human body measurements, but patients with disabilities have unique body structures, such as various degrees of spinal curvature or limb asymmetry, that fall outside normal anthropometric ranges. This added another layer to the complexity, and for this we had to seek an alternative to be able to create accurate visualizations and simulations.

Choosing MakeHuman

To address this, we turned to MakeHuman, an open-source solution originally developed as a Blender plugin but which later evolved into a standalone application. MakeHuman provided a robust starting point for modeling human bodies with adjustable skeletons and body parameters. Because it’s open-source and license-free, we had enough flexibility to deploy a solution without the overhead of developing a custom tool from scratch.

Modifications to MakeHuman

MakeHuman offered a great foundation, but its standard parameters were still not sufficient for the specific needs of our medical equipment project. Our team extended the existing body modification parameters and re-engineered the skeletal structure to better replicate the physical features of people with disabilities.

Web integration

Another major technical hurdle was adapting MakeHuman’s desktop algorithms for use in a web-based platform. Although MakeHuman provided the initial data in the form of a human mannequin, skeleton, and modifiers, we had to completely rewrite the algorithms to be compatible with the web technologies we typically use. This involved implementing custom algorithms in JavaScript and TypeScript, using Three.js for rendering the 3D models.

Performance optimization

We also had to optimize performance, because the complexity of the body modification parameters exceeded the standard capabilities of Three.js, particularly in terms of morphing. To deal with these limitations, we developed our own morphing algorithm to ensure that the 3D configurator could handle the vast range of body adjustments required without compromising on speed or functionality.

Technical Stack Powering the Solution

The success of our solution was made possible through a selected technology stack capable of handling the high demands of custom medical equipment configuration and real-time 3D visualization.

Technologies we used:

NodeJS and NestJS provided the robust backend architecture to manage the relationships between hundreds of product parameters, data processing and communication between the client and server.

VueJS was the client's choice for the frontend to create a highly responsive and interactive user interface. Its reactive components were critical in managing the dynamic nature of the 3D configurator, real-time changes to body parameters and equipment configurations to be instantly reflected in the user’s view.

Verge 3D was at the core of our 3D rendering, with ThreeJS extending its functionality for visualizing complex medical equipment configurations in real time. Its integration with the web-based platform meant that users could view and modify 3D models directly within the browser.

JavaScript and TypeScript were used to implement the algorithms that powered the system’s customization capabilities. We could replicate and modify MakeHuman’s algorithms for web use.

Custom morphing algorithm:

As mentioned previously, we faced challenges with optimizing performance for the body modification parameters and this is where limitations of standard ThreeJS tools appeared. To morph large sets of body modifications in real time, we needed more than the default capabilities offered by ThreeJS. To overcome this, we developed our own custom morphing algorithm that allowed us to handle extensive body modifications without degrading performance. The custom algorithm enabled real-time adjustments to the 3D models, and allowed manipulation of numerous body parameters in order for the configurator to remain responsive and efficient.

Results and Impact

How did our custom CPQ platform impact all involved parties?

Doctors – The platform provided a simplified, intuitive interface that drastically reduced the time and effort required to configure and order custom medical equipment. We digitized and automated complex parameters, and designed a system that minimized the potential for human error. The ordering process was streamlined, and doctors can now spend more time focusing on patient care and be confident that the equipment ordered would meet all necessary specifications, and won’t need multiple iterations or corrections.

Patients – Patients benefit from faster access to equipment that is now precisely tailored to their needs. Whether through basic product selection or advanced customization via the MAT assessment or 3D configurator, the platform works in a way that each piece of equipment is a perfect fit for the individual.

Manufacturer – Manufacturers experienced a significant reduction in communication errors and production delays. The digital platform formalized and streamlined the entire process, from initial configuration to final delivery. The production cycle became more efficient, with much fewer instances of rework or miscommunication between doctors and the factory. The operational costs were reduced and delivery times shortened.

Conclusion

Our custom CPQ solution with integrated 3D configurator has proven to become an irreplaceable tool for our client. Process automation, reduction of errors, and improved communication between doctors, manufacturers, and patients has contributed to acceleration of production and delivery, and enhanced the quality of patient care. A prime example of how software can provide more comfort and functionality in people's everyday lives, and how the future of personalized healthcare should look like.