Medical technology and device manufacturers face many obstacles in repairing, warehousing, and shipping their critical products in a timely fashion. The healthcare industry is always evolving, whether through government intervention or increased competition, but the message is clear — costs need to be driven down while maintaining quality and customer satisfaction. In today’s competitive landscape, original equipment manufacturers also need to be able to accommodate sudden spikes in business without triggering delays to their customers, but reactively handling such fluctuations in-house can often be time consuming and cost-prohibitive. While servicing existing devices is crucial and necessary to maintaining customer satisfaction, consistent business growth is best achieved when a manufacturer can focus internal resources and efforts on innovation and customer experience.
Challenge
Maintain Customer Satisfaction During Business Spikes
A manufacturer of cardiac mapping and navigation technology develops ideas and innovations designed to diagnose and treat arrhythmias. The company contributes directly to improving procedural methodologies and raising success rates while being committed to enhancing safety for both patients and physicians as they work to treat Atrial Fibrillation (AFib).
With increasing product demand for healthcare customers throughout the US and Europe, there was a business initiative for the manufacturer to develop a systematic solution to streamline and standardize operations within its product portfolio. The company required a reputable outsource partner with an established Quality Management System (QMS) as well as a proven track record not only in servicing critical medical devices but also in the complex logistics of managing their install base throughout the value chain.
The manufacturer sought a solution to enhance order management visibility, tracking, and traceability for its products, which perform critical and time-sensitive procedures, ensuring next-day delivery for their electrophysiology devices was a significant factor in addition to maintaining required documentation and traceability, no matter the fluctuation in daily demand. Additionally, the company wanted to assess alternatives to their internal service center capabilities to focus more on customer experience, ensuring their cardiac mapping systems were being serviced in a timely fashion, all while ensuring the highest level of quality control given the critical nature of their systems.
Solution
Scalable, Transparent Full Service & Logistics Solution
The medical manufacturer evaluated both internal operational resource and infrastructure expansion versus leveraging external partnerships to reach their goal for a more scalable and flexible solution while ensuring proper compliance requirements. The optimal course of action was to outsource targeted operations from their current repair facility to Quest International, consisting of the management of service and spare parts management in addition to warehousing their devices with specific temperature and humidity control requirements. These white-labeled solutions were transparent to the end customer, and since onboarding with Quest only took a few weeks — the experience for their customers was seamless. Moving these operations to an outsource partner produced better results and made business sense.
Results
Reduced Service Turnaround and Improved Operations
Moving service and logistics operations to Quest offered the client a hassle-free way to fulfill service orders, and spare parts deliveries, thus eliminating the need for on-site warehousing. By providing improved control over their deployed install base, the manufacturer has been able to increase the efficiency of their returns management turnaround by servicing 30% more products than their previous volume, all while maintaining high-quality standards. Quest’s turnkey service and logistics offering enabled next-day delivery across the country — a crucial requirement for the client’s customers. With decades of experience, and certification in ISO 13485, 9001, & 14001, Quest International had the history and trusted reputation that the client required to act on their behalf to correctly service and manage their critical install base.