Medical device developers that are fortunate enough to successfully launch a product in the market often find themselves stuck in an early conundrum: a very costly device that works well for customers but produces little (or negative!) margin to the business.
Since the focus of the development phase for most medical device and diagnostic products is on quality and time-to-market, the piece-part cost of devices often take a back seat when the heat is on to deliver. Then when the product launches successfully and starts to scale, the company is left with a design that is difficult to optimize for increased value and reduced costs.
So what’s the solution? Product Value Engineering (PVE).
Product Value Engineering (PVE) is a highly-evolved engineering discipline that involves designing a product to achieve a desired feature or function at the absolute lowest total cost. In practice, PVE optimizes core technology and manufacturing processes in either new products or already commercialized products in order to unlock value that is trapped in their inefficient design. High-volume manufacturers -- like auto companies or mobile phone makers -- have sophisticated Value Engineering disciplines within their R&D organizations because product cost is critical to competitive success.
But many medical device manufacturers have yet to leverage this discipline to maximize margins. And this is even harder when you are considering outsourcing the development effort!
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