The Critical Element is Focus

The medical industry is currently one of the fastest growing industries in North America. Analysts all agree that it will continue to grow due to the aging baby boomer generation, longer life expectancies and innovative orthopedic and cardiac surgical practices. Job shops that have already made the transition are enjoying the strong growth in the industry and increasing profits.

According to Joe Norwood, General Manager of CHIRON America, Inc., a manufacturer of high-speed vertical machining centers and specialized turnkey solutions, the critical element is focus. "Today's manufacturing systems need to be adapted to the process at hand, not reworking the process to adapt to the equipment you have on hand. This is not a new concept but rather a principal that has been lost in the universal preoccupation of capital cost reduction and manufacturing flexibility. We tend to focus more on the investment cost than the payback."

Job shops need to be more innovative to meet these high expectations, more precise in quality and finished products and more cautious with safety regulations and practices due to human interaction with the end product. They have also had to invest a significant amount of time and money on education and process training.

"By convincing manufacturers to focus on the task at had (e.g. putting together the best possible solutions for each specific project) rather than rationalizing comprise, which may result in an okay solution, we achieve the most competitive and innovative result possible to combat the ever-growing competition, without sacrificing the quality required by your customer," Norwood says.

CHIRON focuses on adapting their core products to meet their customers product, accuracy and throughput requirements. Single, multiple and swivel spindle machining centers, custom workholding, special tooling, specialized machines, systems design and integration and on site production support are all available to assure that our customers meet their production needs. If capital outlay is a concern, CHIRON offers programs in which customers can pay for systems on "cost per piece" basis, thereby minimizing their cost of production as well as eliminating the need to enter this capital on the balance sheet.