Engineering Service speeds medical product development.
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Press Release Summary:
Utilizing multidisciplinary expertise of 265 engineers, Innovation ExpressSM provides series of services designed to help medical device companies identify, target, design, and manufacture new products. Product development is organized in 3 phases: Technology Forecasting, Product Development, and Manufacturing System Development. All work funded by Innovation Express becomes intellectual property of customer, who may file patent applications for innovations.
Original Press Release:
Foster-Miller Introduces Innovation Express(SM) Service to Speed Medical Product Development from Concept to Commercialization
Waltham, MA (June 13, 2005) - - With over $100 billion being spent each year on new products that fail, many medical device companies are looking for new ways to ensure the success of their innovations. Foster-Miller, one of America's leading product and equipment design companies, answers this need with the introduction of Innovation ExpressSM, a series of services designed to help medical device companies quickly identify, target, design and manufacture novel products. By utilizing the multidisciplinary expertise of Foster-Miller's 265 engineers, these services provide companies with the fastest way to turn new product concepts into blockbuster innovations.
The Innovation Express services span the entire product development cycle, and are organized according to three distinct phases: Technology Forecasting, Product Development, and Manufacturing System Development. Foster-Miller turns these steps, which are traditionally viewed as hurdles along the path to innovation, into opportunities for product distinction.
Foster-Miller has the unique ability to draw on expertise across a wide range of disciplines and apply it to the development of truly innovative medical device products. The scope of project involvement is also critical to the success of a new product. Innovation Express starts with market research and extends through equipment build, enabling Foster-Miller to employ the use of parallel strategies that speed time to market. As confidentiality and protection of intellectual property are essential for new product development, all work funded by the Innovation Express customer becomes the intellectual property of that customer, which is encouraged by Foster-Miller to file patent applications for its innovations. Foster-Miller's complete objectivity provides further assurance of IP protection for medical device companies.
"This suite of services enables companies to outsource the entire product development process, rather than taking a costly and time-consuming piecemeal approach," says Ed Goldman, senior vice president at Foster-Miller. "Many companies try to piece together different aspects of the product development process using various internal and external resources. This commonly results in disjointed information, redundant efforts and a poor matching of expertise. By contrast, Innovation Express brings the whole development process to a single point of focus, providing the quickest route to market."
Outsourcing R&D is gaining traction in the medical device industry, as the need to bring new products to market faster intensifies. Innovation Express reinforces the viability of this option by demonstrating the ingenuity that a diverse talent pool brings to the table, and by allaying fears that IP will be compromised if R&D is outsourced.
Innovation Express Suite of Services
o Technology Forecasting identifies developing technologies that will impact the market two, five and ten years down the road, and leverages Foster-Miller's extensive experience adapting advanced technologies to real world situations.
o During Product Development, Foster-Miller's medical, electrical, thermal, chemical, software and materials engineers utilize research results based on one-on-one interviews, focus groups and customer surveys to turn product concepts into prototypes. Testing and evaluation is also performed during this phase to establish manufacturing feasibility, and more thoroughly examine the business case for developing new innovations, such as return-on-investment and life cycle.
o Manufacturing System Development is the culmination of Innovation Express. It not only requires diverse engineering expertise, but also the physical resources to construct a one-of-a-kind process for the large-scale production of new innovations.
While Innovation Express follows the natural progression of steps outlined above to ensure that projects start off on the "fast track," Foster-Miller can help companies propel projects forward at any point in the product development process.
About Foster-Miller
Foster-Miller, Inc. (Waltham, MA), one of the premiere product and equipment design companies in America, is a single-source provider of process and equipment innovations that help companies in a wide range of industries attain market success. Foster-Miller helps companies formulate ideas and design new products through innovative manufacturing concepts and the development of custom equipment. The company is an independent, privately held company founded in 1956 by three MIT graduates. It has a staff of more than 380 employees, composed of mechanical, electrical, thermal, chemical, nuclear, aerospace, software and materials engineers, as well as physicists, mathematicians, chemists, and biologists. It has offices in Washington, DC and Albany, New York. The company was named one of the most innovative businesses in America by Inc. magazine in August 2002.
Foster-Miller, Inc. is a subsidiary of QinetiQ North America, Inc., part of the worldwide QinetiQ group of companies, a U.K.-based 10,000-employee engineering firm.
