Company insight
Supplying despite the global struggle
Florida-based Halkey-Roberts specialises in the design and production of gas and fluid delivery products used in disposable medical devices. It also develops pressure relief valves used in hospitals, transportation and military aviation. Steve Bello, vice-president of business development, explains how the company is maintaining supply lines to customers in Asia, Europe and South America while tackling the logistical obstacles and longer shipment times seen during the pandemic.
What issues have you faced during the pandemic and has the experience of dealing with them yielded any lessons for the company now cases have receded? Steve Bello: We have been proactive in keeping our inventory levels of finished product over and above what we typically stock. This way we can react quickly and airship product when needed. Many of our shipments travel via sea freight and often there are delays in transit. Our customers really appreciate our ability to react to this quickly when necessary. Everyone is also facing increasing costs and shortages of labour. We are working hard to contain costs as best we can, but it is very challenging when our costs for all inputs are increasing. We are now looking strategically at our products and ways to reduce costs through product redesign as well as aggressively looking at automation technologies. This will be the only way we can combat these issues.
What are the main challenges facing Halkey-Roberts in the area of product innovation?
One of the biggest obstacles we face in developing new and innovative products is selling these ideas and concepts to our OEM partners. We do our due diligence with market research and engagement with clinicians on solutions to their problems, but the OEM controls these end products and markets, so they are the key to driving adoption of our new and innovative products into the market. In many cases, there is not enough incentive for the OEM to adopt something new when they have a large market share or have a competing component that is inferior but nonetheless does the job.
How important are the principles of usability and safety in your product development, and why?
Halkey-Roberts valves are used by companies in a multitude of sectors.
What we see is adoption happening with smaller competitors trying to add value and differentiating their offering against the large OEMs. We work all of these paths to try and get our products into the market. In many cases, we developed a new product several years ago that is just now being adopted. We have a long-term view, as once the adoption of the product takes place, the life cycle could be many years or even decades, which allows us to recapture our investment and enjoy a long product life cycle.
Have you identified any business opportunities in the home care market, and if so, which ones? The home care market is growing rapidly and is in need of products that are intuitive and easy to use for care givers and patients. We see opportunity to make life easier and safer for home-infusion applications and other fluid delivery and drainage products. We believe making minor modifications to existing products can make a big difference in this space. We also have existing products that work very well that we are currently driving the adoption of both through existing and new potential customers.
Medical Device Developments /
www.nsmedicaldevices.com
Both of these concepts are the key to having a product that will be adopted quickly. We can engineer a solution to any problem, but it must be easy to use, solve the problem and be cost effective. Safety is also a big priority, as in many cases we are developing not only a product that will be easy to use, but that also enhances safety for the patient, care giver and clinician. Adding features that reduce or eliminate exposure to bodily fluids and reducing the possibility of infection are key. We see great interest in products that can address these issues, which can cause serious morbidity and mortality in patients.
Halkey-Roberts prides itself on 'mass customising' products for customers. Why is it such an important pillar of your business? This market is growing rapidly as our customers are becoming more demanding with their needs and want to add features for patient safety and to differentiate their product from their competitors. These custom products are now a large part of our revenue growth and are harder for competitors to displace so it works as a protective strategy. The other advantage is that these custom products act like annuities, the revenue stream can last for many years, as it is difficult for the customer to simply replace this custom product with another off-the-shelf lower cost replacement. Providing this custom product at a low unit production cost is the key. We have the financial and human resources to take on these challenges. ●
www.halkeyroberts.com 35
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