Company insight A path through uncertainty
The medical device industry doesn’t stand still for a second. With so many moving parts, there’s always some form of evolution going on, whether it’s in R&D departments, product design labs or in the manufacturing facilities that make their lofty ambitions a physical reality. It’s vital, then, that the companies creating and assembling the nuts and bolts of devices stay consistent. Custom Wire Technologies president Bob Boldig explains how his company has maintained the quality and service OEMs have come to expect.
T
he forces that shape a marketplace can differ significantly, but prior to 2020, few people would have thought that the most significant of them would be the onset of a global pandemic. For the healthcare sector though, the response that would follow outbreaks of the coronavirus across the globe were a lot more predictable. To control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease Covid-19, elective surgeries were halted. The result was felt immediately by companies along the medical device supply chain as product orders dwindled due to the reduced demand.
A proactive stance Bob Boldig, president of Wisconsin-based Custom Wire Technologies (CWT), was one of the many companies to feel this impact, as some of his customers “slowed down and even paused for a period of time” because their devices were on the wrong side of the “essential and nonessential” allocation. But rather than rest on their laurels and wait for the business to return, Boldig’s company took a proactive stance. “We kept the lines of communication open with these customers to find out whether they expected a return to normal once restrictions were lifted, as well as whether they anticipated an increase because of the immediate demand.” Boldig’s company even took a risk by continuing to churn out its metal wiring and custom making it for specific customers using its combination of coiling, forming, grinding and welding capabilities. The bet Custom Wire made was that the orders would return and when they did, the inventory would be ready to ship – but to execute this plan, Boldig had to take another risk.
“There’s a huge demand for raw materials, so material lead times are getting to the point where what was six weeks is now 20 weeks – that’s more than three times what they were pre-Covid,” says Boldig. “By the time we add our manufacturing lead time of between four and six weeks on top of that, we’re talking six months. We’re rolling the dice and buying material in advance without necessarily having orders on the books to support it, just so that we have the ability to respond.”
Growth in uncertain times The risks taken by Boldig appear to have paid off for CWT, as customers whose devices were deemed non-essential “came back very strongly trying to refill their supply pipeline”, as
the company to maintain a solid balance sheet, but to pick up extra customers and continue to grow along the way.
Push forward for expansion With a backlog of elective procedures for medical device OEMs to meet on top of the demand from new customers, CWT is pressing ahead with prior plans to expand its production capacity. “We acquired a new building we’re having converted so we can expand our clean room operation and provide more manufacturing space,” explains Boldig. “We’re within two months of having the new clean room facility built for us and being able to move some of our operation in there, so that we can relieve some of the congestion from increased orders in our current facility.”
“We kept the lines of communication open with these customers to find out whether they expected a return to normal once restrictions were lifted, as well as whether they anticipated an increase because of the immediate demand.”
he puts it, once elective surgeries could take place again. The company had the benefit of consistent orders from domestic OEMs whose devices were considered essential, but he also credits the firm’s growth into international markets as another reason it “weathered the storm” created by the pandemic.
A strong demand for wire-based medical products from countries in Europe as well as from China “mirrored” the orders from essential device manufacturers seen in the US, explains Boldig, which not only helped
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
Over the longer term, CWT continues to keep pace with developments in the wider market, like ever more compact and sophisticated devices that require smaller and multi-functional wire components. But Boldig is keen to express that the company remains focused on the core competencies on which it was built. “Without spreading our abilities too thin, we continuously improve on the things that got us here,” he concludes. ●
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