RTEmd’s Sustaining Engineering Product Audit Helps Medical Manufacturers Capture Untapped Revenue In Current Product Lines

News Release

New RTEmd software service builds on 27 years of experience in software development and maintenance for leading manufacturers of IVD, diagnostic imaging and other medical systems.

Pittsford, NY – April 2, 2009 – RTEmd, a leading provider of outsourced software development and testing services for complex medical systems, today announced its new Sustaining Engineering Product Audit service to help medical system manufacturers discover and capture untapped revenue opportunities in their existing product lines. The Sustaining Engineering Product Audit helps RTEmd clients assess a current product platform, identify specific opportunities for improvement, and determine which opportunities offer the greatest return on investment. The RTEmd audit team documents product requirements which the manufacturer may implement to capture these opportunities.

RTEmd identifies software solutions to challenges such as parts obsolescence, regulatory compliance or competitive issues, problems reported in the field, RoHS or WEEE requirements, and marketing or customer requests for new features and capabilities. Addressing these issues through software enhancements can lead to new revenue for the manufacturer. The need to replace an obsolete part, for example, can present an opportunity to create enhancements that are substantial enough to generate sales of upgrade kits. In a recent Sustaining Engineering project, an RTEmd customer was able to release an improved system as a new product, at a fraction of the cost of full-scale new product development effort. (See case study.)

“In this economy, manufacturers need to look at all sources of revenue and protect their market share while keeping costs down. A Sustaining Engineering effort can generate new revenue quickly, as compared to a new product launch, and it immediately feeds customer satisfaction and loyalty,” said Bob Ruppenthal, president of RTEmd. “By outsourcing sustaining engineering to RTEmd, our customers achieve these benefits and avoid the costs of scaling up an in-house team to take care of their current products.”

An RTEmd Sustaining Engineering Product Audit comprises the following steps:

1. Conduct an initial planning meeting with client stakeholders to identify the products or product platforms to be audited.
2. Document process steps, schedule and budget estimate for the audit.
3. Interview key stakeholder personnel in marketing, customer product support, engineering and manufacturing to assess the product issues and identify opportunities for improvement.
4. Facilitate dialogue to quantify cost and benefits, including comparing the expected life of the product in its current state vs. its expected life and competitive position with the proposed enhancements.
5. Present to management the most favorable product opportunities identified by the audit.
6. Identify next steps toward implementation including documentation of specific product requirements.

RTEmd brings an in-depth understanding of medical systems, expert project management, and an ability to understand medical manufacturers’ goals and internal processes. Following the audit, the client may choose to develop the software enhancements internally or outsource them to RTEmd.

The audit process is built upon RTEmd’s 27-year history of software development for medical systems and the extensive experience of our Sustaining Engineering team. RTEmd software expertise ranges from sample metering, mechanical motion and instrumentation to user interfaces, results computation and network connectivity.

About RTEmd

RTEmd provides outsourced medical software development and testing for complex medical equipment. The company develops and maintains software in IVD, image and information management, therapeutics, microbiology and nephrology. RTEmd offers New Product Development to deliver high-quality, FDA-compliant software for new medical devices; Sustaining Engineering to maintain and enhance existing software and extend the value of current products; and Verification and Validation to speed FDA approvals, leveraging its expertise in FDA compliance and testing. RTEmd’s 30 years of client-focused flexibility for major device manufacturers, ISO9001:2008 certified quality system and disciplined project management power the firm’s promise: we will never compromise your time-to-market.

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