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As the leader of Greatbatch Medical, Mauricio Arellano is responsible for driving the design and manufacture of critical technologies for the orthopaedic, cardiac rhythm management, neuromodulation and vascular access markets. Prior to joining Greatbatch, he held various management positions at Tyco Healthcare (now Covidien) and Sony. Arellano currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Buffalo Museum of Science, and is Vice Chairman of MedTech’s Board of Directors.
BONEZONE: Kindly begin with some background. Who is Greatbatch Medical?
Mauricio Arellano: Greatbatch Medical is a leading developer and manufacturer of critical technologies and medical devices for the orthopaedic and other markets, including cardiac rhythm management, neuromodulation and vascular access.
Wilson Greatbatch, co-inventor of the first successfully implanted pacemaker in the U.S., founded our company in 1970. He recognized the critical importance of the power source to the success of the pacemaker, and subsequently built a business to execute on his lifelong vision of partnering with our customers to provide clinicians with better treatment options to improve patient outcomes.
Today we employ more than 2,000 associates distributed across a global footprint of ten facilities located in Indiana, Minnesota, New York, France, Mexico and Switzerland. As a company, we continue to evolve every day, looking for new and better ways to create value for all our key stakeholders, while helping to save and improve the lives of millions of people around the world. This combination makes our efforts incredibly rewarding.
BONEZONE: How would you position the Greatbatch Medical name in the orthopaedic market?
Mauricio Arellano: As I mentioned before, we began in the cardiac rhythm management market, and over the past 40 years have used our strengths—innovation, reliability and operational excellence—to grow by expanding product lines and investing into new markets like orthopaedics. This successful expansion into other markets has been fueled by our ability to combine our rich legacy in critical medical technologies with strategic acquisitions.
In 2008, we acquired Precimed (instruments, trays and cases) and DePuy’s Chaumont, France facility (implants). These acquisitions gained us a solid foundation from which to build our expansion into the orthopaedic market. Since then, we have made and will continue to make significant investments to enhance our capabilities and build our infrastructure to position ourselves for future innovation and growth.
Of critical importance to this positioning is our ability to partner at a strategic level with our customers and leverage a broad portfolio of products with best-in-class services. We are truly passionate about customer satisfaction and strive to become a seamless extension of our customers’ innovation and supply chain processes.
BONEZONE: Would you provide an overview of the existing Greatbatch Medical operating capabilities in the orthopaedic market?
Mauricio Arellano: In order to understand the value of the Greatbatch Medical brand in this particular market, I’d ask that you take a closer look at the various parts of our orthopaedic business. Then the firmly established history of our operations comes to light. Our Swiss operation is based on high precision machining technology, with over 20 years of experience in the medical field. Our Chaumont facility has a long and proven track record of excellence in implant manufacturing, and we continue to build on that extensive expertise. Chaumont machines, provides hydroxyapatite coating and finishes hip stems, shoulder implants and foot products.
Our delivery systems operations in Indianapolis have been making cases and trays for the orthopaedic market for more than 30 years. Last, but not least, our growing instrument and spinal implant manufacturing facility in Columbia City, Indiana offers rapid prototyping capability to the U.S. markets.
At Greatbatch Medical, we take great pride in our commitment to Operational Excellence. For this purpose we have in place a team of Lean-Sigma experts dedicated to sharing best practices and supporting the deployment of a Lean-Sigma culture across our business. We are also committed to investments aimed at enhancing and expanding our infrastructure in support of our growth strategy.
BONEZONE: Can you expand on Greatbatch Medical’s investments in orthopaedics?
Mauricio Arellano: We’re very proud of the investments that we’ve made to date and our plans going forward. We see these as the second phase of our expansion into this market. One of our first ventures was the 2010 opening of our Technology Development Center in Warsaw, Indiana. Equipped with rapid prototyping capability and staffed with an industry-leading team of development experts, it houses our state of the art three-dimensional rapid prototyping and direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) equipment. These capabilities are critical to speeding new products to market. We plan to expand this Technology Development Center and create a similar location to service our European customers.
The Indianapolis facility underwent an extensive $6 million facelift which, coupled with the deployment of Lean-Sigma activities, has significantly enhanced our capabilities, transforming this location into what we consider to be best in class.
Earlier this year, we announced plans to build a new manufacturing facility in Allen County, Indiana. This $17 million investment will effectively double the size of our current Columbia City facility, significantly expanding our implant and instrument manufacturing capabilities within the U.S. while maintaining close proximity to our customer base.
These facility investments are in addition to multimillion dollar state of the art capital equipment purchased and deployed at all of our locations. I’m very pleased to say that phase two of our expansion into the orthopaedics market is progressing at an accelerated pace.
BONEZONE: The Warsaw facility seems to be unique in this mix of facilities. Can you expand upon that?
Mauricio Arellano: What’s especially unique about the Warsaw facility is that it’s a direct result of our customer partnering strategy. The Technology Development Center in Warsaw, Indiana enables direct collaboration with customers, problem solving, building prototypes and helping our customer teams accelerate their development cycles and get to market sooner. The Technology Development Center fulfills another role, in that it has become our internal hub for innovation. Since the design of our first pacemaker battery, our company has been known as an innovator with a keen ability to transform ideas into products that help our customers and the clinical community address the challenges of an ever-evolving and demanding medical field.
BONEZONE: What about the orthopaedics market excites you?
Mauricio Arellano: We see significant opportunities to improve critical care and quality of life for a large and growing patient population. Orthopaedics is about maintaining and extending mobility, keeping the aging population active longer. It’s also about relieving pain, correcting deformity and sometimes re-establishing normal functioning.
Based on our legacy of innovation, reliability and our commitment to invest in people, facilities and equipment, we are energized by the way that we can continue to play a critical part in our customers’ bigger vision. This allows them to focus on what matters most: bringing medical technologies to market that contribute to the best possible outcomes for patients around the world.
In essence, our excitement grows with our ability to make a difference. We understand and embrace the responsibility that comes with the partnering relationships we are building with our customers, and we will continue to make sure we deliver on our promise.
