In the world of custom automation, almost every project is extremely complex. Customers are living in a rapidly changing environment and outcomes are sometimes difficult to predict. This can be frustrating for customers and equipment providers alike. Occasionally, projects don’t go as either parties would hope, and the customer has to seek an alternative solution that better suits their needs. Often times, that’s when customers come to us. They know we will deliver a robust, workable solution and work with them throughout the process until they’re satisfied.
This was the case when we met with one of the country’s major medical device manufacturers. They had purchased a semi-automatic system that didn’t meet their cycle time and quality needs as they had hoped. Demand for this product continued to rise, and time was critical to implement a successful solution.
Once the customer came to the HAHN Automation Group (formerly, Invotec), they had already decided to completely remove the possibility of human error by replacing multiple semi-automated systems with one fully automated system. They wanted to reduce the cycle time to meet their increasing quantity demands and enhance the flexibility to accommodate additional product types.
Given the project’s high visibility to the customer’s management team and tight timeline, it was imperative for HAHN Automation Group to make the customer feel confident in the solution before beginning the engineering. We started by conducting additional design reviews to work through the technical challenges of the project. We also continually kept the customer up-to-date on the project’s progress. As with most medical device manufacturers, last minute changes were necessary. The HAHN Automation Group kept our process flexible to accommodate these changes and used our collective experience to include options to make the system more robust, more efficient and easier to support.
At the close of the project, the HAHN Automation Group delivered a fully automated system with a robust process that could handle the faster cycle time without letting the quality of the product suffer. We also supplied full documentation, pre-formatted to meet the customer’s corporate standards, to streamline their validation process. The customer was thrilled with the results and is already planning a number of additional systems worldwide.
