Contract Manufacturers Offer Pandemic Lessons Learned

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light significant shortcomings of the U.S. healthcare supply chain. Undoubtedly, years will be spent evaluating what policies, practices, and protocols failed under the pressure of a global event that touched everyone. Whether reshoring occurs, just-in-time inventory is reconsidered, or medtech manufacturing faces lasting changes will not be known for some time.

What we can learn from the experience and carry forward in a much more rapid manner, however, are the lessons learned from the successes. Uncovering what worked correctly or what ideas were put into place to help eliminate challenges created over the last year-plus is a great way to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. With this in mind, as part of this year’s full-service outsourcing roundtable presentation, I asked a number of questions to uncover those wins, even if they were smaller in scale or presumed to be a specific reaction to the pandemic. After all, “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” As such, I highlighted some responses here.

“A best practice that Flex will carry forward is implementing velocity of purpose,” explained Erik Larsen of Flex Health Solutions. “We were deliberate in how our technical resources were leveraged throughout our COVID-19 programs for customers. We provided key technical resources to the critical programs at the required moments in the programs’ lifecycles. This strategy eliminated redundancies and oversaturation that dependent activities sometimes cause. The ability to rapidly deploy and re-deploy technical resources allowed our programs to accelerate throughout the product lifecycle without compromising quality, regulatory, or performance requirements.”

Jason Sauey of Flambeau shared several realizations. “We have learned a number of lessons—the first is know your team can be better than you think. Let them be better. Lay out the expectations and let them run with it. The second is to try to get ahead of uncertainty by talking openly with customers about their demand needs and getting a forecast from them they will commit to. Establishment of supply agreements have also increased in profile and value. Unfortunately, many customers have had to learn some tough lessons too as conditions of abundancy may have been taken for granted. Third, we learned there is great risk in relying on a far-flung supply chain. The lead times and associated inventory and delivery implications are not worth the risks and costs of running out of supply in a time of critical need. There is value in having reliable quality domestic supply.”

Donatelle Plastics’ Mike Kaiser mentioned a topic I’ve given thought too regarding companies during the pandemic who operated under a paper-based system. “Many of our systems were already setup as paperless, which allowed for an easier transition to a remote work environment. These included most of our manufacturing, quality, process monitoring, planning/purchasing, and other business systems.”

Greg Paulsen of Xometry offered a related point on this issue. “One of the challenges with the massive disruptions to OEM supply chains was the technical data required to make the part was often not directly accessible. For new suppliers to get started on a project, this was a gap that needed closure. I feel this should drive many OEMs to build a virtual inventory, where manufacturing data can be quickly shared with alternate suppliers to mitigate disruptions.”

Communication was forced to change dramatically during the pandemic, with in-person meetings simply not possible. “Before the pandemic, we assumed certain interactions had to be in-person; today, we are much more open to considering alternatives. For example, we became more flexible in our hiring process by conducting interviews virtually. This allowed us to quickly schedule interviews with several stakeholders at different facilities, rather than coordinating multiple schedules for an in-person meeting. Additionally, the openness of applying a virtual format to training has dramatically increased the amount of learning opportunities we can provide to a broader employee base,” stated Anja White of Cretex Medical.

Finally, Marshall White of TEAM Technologies perhaps supplied the simplest, yet most important message. “Be prepared. This preparation certainly should include policies for a potential crisis such as this, but it also includes things like making sure you have a robust and redundant supply chain that can handle some level of fluctuation. And through all of it, ensure you are communicating, even overcommunicating, with everyone—customers, suppliers, and especially your teammates.” 

Sean Fenske, Editor-in-Chief
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