Industry:

Customer:

Situation

Our cardiology customer transported their product on a custom designed medical cart. The cart no longer fit the demands of their product according to feedback from their customers. They desired redesigning the cart to the customer feedback, while reducing their inventory turns and lead-time to market.

Design Process

1. Met with their marketing and engineering staff to redesign the cart to accommodate:
   • Improved writing surface
   • Multiple computer mounting options
   • Better paper tray
2. Presented several prototypes
3. Implemented into production

Solutions Provided

Ultimately, HUI provided a solution that accommodated all three critical design issues. Several different design options were provided. These options included an entire new concept and a slight redesign of the current unit. HUI’s design engineers worked with multiple engineering, marketing, and purchasing employees to provide a final design that combined the best features of the entirely new concept into a redesign of the current cart.

In studying the purchasing and manufacturing operations, we also discovered that by designing the product differently, we could reduce our customer’s part numbers ordered, improve their inventory turns, and lower their cost.

Results

• 10% price reduction due to redesign
• $150,000 annual cost savings
• Reduced order lead time by 50% (from 4 weeks to 2 weeks).
• Reduced cart inventory by 40% (building per need vs volume)
• Reduced the number of part numbers purchased by 50%.