Design, Manufacturing & Supply Chain Expertise Fuels Stability and Growth of Arthroscopic Product Line

April 20, 2024

CUSTOMER SITUATION

A large supplier of orthopedic devices obtained an established arthroscopic product line as part of an acquisition. The line of shavers and burrs was marred by inconsistent field performance, an incomplete design history file (DHF) without the ability to trace root cause, and an unstable supply chain. The customer needed to improve both the product and the manufacturing process, develop line extensions, and lower cost, while stabilizing the supply chain and maintaining continuity of supply.

The customer had limited engineering resources for product enhancements and product qualifications and needed a strong partner. The company selected Viant based on:

VIANT SOLUTION

Viant took a staged approach to the project. In stage one, the Viant team took over management of the current supply chain. The team also provided design engineering and prototype support, redesigning the flagship device for greatly improved performance and manufacturability. It established US-based assembly cells to launch the refreshed flagship device with improved performance features.

In stage two, the team extended the design enhancements to the entire product line (>25 unique SKUs), including full DHF responsibility. Viant’s supply chain experts were able to vertically integrate the device supply chain and save costs by consolidating more operations within Viant.

In stage three, Viant provided additional design support to develop product line extensions to address additional procedures. The team established a dedicated, vertically integrated cell in a low-cost geography for complex tube subassemblies, which was fed from a dedicated fabrication cell including laser welding, wire electrical discharge machining (EDM), sink EDM, grinding, electropolishing, and other secondary processes.

All told, Viant co-developed and launched 50+ codes with an updated DHF that identified critical quality characteristics.

RESULTS

Viant successfully transferred the product using manufacturing facilities in both the US and low-cost geographies. The team also redesigned the product for improved performance, improved the manufacturing line, stabilized the supply chain, and launched new devices. These efforts led to substantial improvements: