So, your initial custom medical cart design didn’t pan out quite the way you wanted. So, your project isn’t generating as much money as you anticipated, or it’s just time for Gen 2.
So what?
Now the real fun begins.
Keep in mind that successful products are rarely a one-and-done deal. Excellence relies on continued innovation and persistence. So, persist. Take a step back and evaluate your project from an objective perspective.
More often than not, a custom medical cart project may fall short of economical expectations because your forecast at the time of the initial design was much higher than the outcome, so now you’re left with a less-than-prosperous product.
So, what do you do next?
Gather feedback from those who currently use your product and to have your redesign team look at how your custom medical cart is used in the field. In some cases, you may find your cart has features that people don’t even use, and you can save money by eliminating that design element.
If cost efficiency is something you want to achieve, have your redesign team evaluate your manufacturing processes, tooling and ordering strategy. In some cases, a few changes in these areas can help considerably.
In addition to this, you may want to examine shipping logistics. How many medical carts fit on a pallet? How many can you ship at once? Might it be more efficient to drop ship? How much of your custom medical cart needs to be assembled before shipping? These are but a few questions that may lead to a more efficient shipping method.
Now comes the difficult part. Where do you go next?
The good news is you have a few options:
1. Adjust manufacturability, assembly, tooling, shipping and ordering strategies accordingly
Reevaluating and making changes to your initial strategy may help reduce cost and make your project more successful overall, effectively avoiding a complete redesign.
2. Sell the cart as a base and offer add-on kits of special features specific to your consumer’s needs
This allows for a little more flexibility for sales. In some cases, a custom medical cart’s purpose relies on the end user. Instead of incorporating a broad spectrum of costly features that may not be used by everyone, this option lowers cost of the base cart by defeaturing the end product but still keeping some of those features available as an add-on for those who need it.
3. Initiate a complete redesign of your custom medical cart
It will behoove your redesign efforts to use a medical manufacturer as opposed to a design firm. Design firms tend to neglect the manufacturability element, and there may be some ambiguity regarding the cost of the redesign. Custom medical cart manufacturers, however, are incredibly familiar with optimizing manufacturability, quoting parts and are often sensitive to their customer’s budgets.
At HUI, we take pride in our ability to find and create solutions for our customers, whether it’s for a custom medical cart, VersaStar or a redesign project. If you have any questions or projects in mind, contact us today, and we’ll get your project underway.
