John McCool, executive director of business development at KMC Systems Inc highlights the challenges facing medtech and what must be done to keep companies moving forward.
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momentum concept
We are living in turbulent times marked by new diseases and viruses that significantly impact human health. Consequently, demand for the development of vaccines and medicines, as well as faster access to advanced diagnostic equipment to achieve better patient outcomes, continues to rise. This rapidly shifting medical landscape, including the digitisation of the healthcare industry, has placed global medical device and healthcare OEMs at an unparalleled intersection where specialised technological solutions are needed more than ever before.
Priorities for medical device brands and healthcare providers are patient care and outcomes-based results, which depend on fast, reliable diagnostics. Since the start of the pandemic, many medtech firms focused their expertise on creating technological solutions. Similarly, many healthcare companies – even ones that haven’t traditionally incorporated technology – turned their attention to how technology could transform the delivery of their products and services.
There are now several new players in the medical device market, but successfully maintaining momentum and customer growth requires expertise in product ideation, engineering and development, and the ability to scale a business up and down efficiently to meet (and exceed) customer needs. What underpins all of this is trust, innovation, and a talented, forward-thinking team with the nimbleness to problem solve and quickly turn around production, despite fluctuating requirements.
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, KMC Systems designed, engineered, and manufactured large-scale medical devices and instrumentation to deliver products on time, and we also increased unit output to meet our customers’ growing demands. This included ramping up production on our largest instrument by 309% over the course of several months without increasing the square footage of our main manufacturing facility in Merrimack, New Hampshire. Our ability to scale was made possible by cross-training employees on different products and introducing a double-shift pattern.
KMC provides the innovation, the design, the product development, and the agile workforce, so it’s not uncommon for a customer to come to us and say: “We have this industry problem, or we have this test that we need to automate, and we need to provide accuracy and increase the testing volume. Can you design an instrument that does that for us?” Instead of adapting and working around pre-existing solutions, we can design systems with the exact features and functionality that our customers need.
KMC focuses on innovation-first and customer collaboration. We think of ourselves as an extension to our customers’ internal team and prioritise communication and collaboration. By aligning with our customers’ experts and working towards a shared objective, we can create a cohesive team that is greater than the sum of its parts. This approach is what it takes to maintain growth when the market is experiencing turbulence, whether that’s influenced by supply chain issues, the fluctuating price of components/raw materials, or attracting and retaining the right talent.
But truly, the pulse of any successful medtech business and the key contributor to maintaining momentum and customer growth in turbulent times are the people. KMC is fortunate to employ a highly trained, loyal, and qualified workforce that can adjust to changing customer needs. KMC employees, some of whom have been with us for over 40 years, are continually educated, empowered, and engaged in lean manufacturing principles, which allow us to create quicker, more cost-effective products for our customers – medical device OEMs – so they can provide the healthcare market with cost-effective products that are focused on better patient outcomes. We also cross-train teams on several product lines at any given time, allowing us the flexibility to scale teams where and when we need them most.
All these factors are critical in maintaining forward momentum in the medtech business and ensuring that customers are also growing with us at every step of the journey.
