Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry Magazine
MDDI Article Index

Originally Published MDDI August 2005

OUTSOURCING NEWS

Equipment design company Foster-Miller Inc. (Waltham, MA) has introduced a suite of services to help medical device companies create and market novel products. The system called the Innovation Express has three distinct phases. Each step is designed to give customers vital information and assistance that will help create blockbuster products quickly.

“Many companies try to piece together different aspects of product development using various internal and external resources,” says Ed Goldman, senior vice president at Foster-Miller. “This commonly results in disjointed information, redundant efforts, and a mismatch expertise.”

The Innovation Express system, he continues, may help alleviate some of those issues by bringing the process to a single point of focus.

The three phases in the system are technology forecasting, product development, and manufacturing system development. The technology fore-casting phase identifies developing technologies that will affect the market two, five, and 10 years down the road. The product development phase focuses on using research results to create prototypes. Research is based on one-on-one interviews, focus groups, and customer surveys. Testing and evaluation are performed to establish manufacturing feasibility and economic aspects, such as return on investment and life cycle. During the manufacturing system phase, a custom process for production is developed.

The company has also taken steps to assure its customers that intellectual property will be protected. Because it is essential to product development, all work funded by the customer becomes the intellectual property of that customer, and they are encouraged to file patent applications for such work.

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