Originally Published MX May/June 2002

BUSINESS PLANNING
& TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

The Many Paths
to Design Excellence

The winners
of this year's Medical Design Excellence Awards are united by a common focus
on effective medical design.

Renee
DiIulio

When John Bottjer
purchased Geiger Instrument Co. in 1995, he knew that its long-term future was
uncertain. The company had manufactured thermal cautery units for more than
80 years, and change had been slow in coming. The company's then-current cautery
unit had not been updated in more than four decades. A redesign "was a
matter of survival for Geiger," Bottjer recalls. "The previous unit
had stable sales with little growth potential and was insufficient for the company
to continue long term."



As part
of the turnaround, the company was renamed Geiger Medical Technologies and relocated
to Monarch Beach, CA. More importantly, though, Bottjer set out to update the
company's flagship thermal cautery unit. He began with an intense period of
analyzing the market and interviewing users. Then, together with an electronics