Cooper Surgical- Devices

Med Device portfolio cost reduction program  (endoscopy)

With a growth strategy, solely based in acquisition, New product development was not in the organizations DNA .  Across the female health portfolio, the endoscopy platform was underperforming, yet presented the largest opportunity for growth. 

Challenge:  The cost of endoscopic product manufacture needed to reduce by 30% to enable expansion into global markets. However., driving internal innovation and design improvement programs presented a business and cultural challenge to an engineering team that was largely focused on acquisitions and compliance. 

Solution: After performing comprehensive competitive analysis, interviews with leading clinicians and doctors across the country's prominent hospitals, an evaluation of emerging technologies within clinicians offices and Surgical suites, and gaining insights from buyers and insurance providers, a series of opportunities began to take shape. 

Already perceived as a premium product, the first opportunity was to reduce cost of goods through smarter manufacturing to be price competitive in targeted regions such as the Middle East and APAC region.  A Kaizen-style Cross-functional and multidisciplinary evaluation project was established to evaluate every component in manufacturing step from raw material to finish good . Opportunities to reduce costs by 30% were identified through  a combination of insourcing, creating more value added sub-assembly with contract manufacturing vendors, and automating assembly an inspection processes saving time and increasing yield. 

The second opportunity was to rethink and innovate the visual component of the endoscope.  The traditional design had a small screen directly attached to the handle of the scope.  However, the screen would impede maneuverability and was difficult to read should the scope need to be rotated during the procedure.  However,  most clinics and hospital suites already have a monitor in the suite.  By decoupling the screen from the physical product and adding the wireless option to project to the  in-suite monitor, the new solution could simply be set up by the clinician IT department.   Not only did this provide a superior visual patient/caregiver experience, but it eliminated nearly 20% of the cost of goods for the manufacturer.

Results: Working closely with regulatory to gain certifications. Keymarkets, A 9-month new product launch plan was put in place. Pre-sale demonstrations and targeted marketing allowed for a doubling of sales immediately upon launch. 

As a result of the insourcing and supply chain controls, product was able to be delivered 20% faster than a previous lead time. This bolstered topline revenues by delivering more product in a shorter amount of time. 

Profitability of the endoscope platform increased by 35% through bottom line cost reduction measures realized in the manufacturing and assembly process.