Jan Wahlstrom

Elos Medtech has many experts among the over 550 employees working at our facilities worldwide. This is a great asset to guarantee our customers expertise, quality, and capacity in our industry. A few months ago, we found a great way to use this asset to the fullest. By temporarily lending out workforce from our Chinese factory to our Swedish factory, we not only ensured on-time delivery but also upgraded our employees’ professional skills. For us, working as one company means there “ain’t no mountain high enough” when it comes to delivering what we promise to our customers.

Reliable production flow in the medtech industry

In a strongly regulated line of business, such as the medtech industry, ensuring on-time delivery and living up to customers’ expectations is of the highest importance. We, at Elos Medtech, are constantly aware of the millions of patients we help and we go above and beyond to meet our customers’ needs. We strongly believe in the concept of “working as one company”, and a great example of this is the successful cooperation between our two factories in Sweden and China.

Sharing resources between production sites in Sweden and China

A few months ago, Elos Medtech’s factory in Timmersdala, Sweden, foresaw an upcoming temporary shortage of manpower. Proactive discussions and a strong willingness to cooperate within the Elos Medtech Group led to our factory in Tianjin, China, sending a group of skilled employees to our Swedish factory to help with production. After our Chinese colleagues arrived at Timmersdala, a result-oriented dialogue started with the local employees, in order to identify the production areas in which added labor was needed the most.

On-time delivery and increased knowledge in the Elos Medtech Group

There are several benefits to this type of cooperation. Aside from ensuring on-time delivery, it is also a great opportunity for our employees to see how different production sites work within the Elos Medtech Group. It is also a chance for our employees to broaden their knowledge and upgrade their professional skills.

Haibin Xu, Process Engineer at Elos Medtech in Tianjin, China, looks back at the positive experience: “I learned a lot of new professional techniques working at the factory in Timmersdala. For example, I learned more efficient ways of operating an advanced production machine that we also have in our factory in Tianjin. These methods can be applied in our factory to improve our production even more. It was also great to make new friends and strengthen our communication network within the Elos Medtech Group. The concept of “Working as one company” improves our problem-solving skills as we can share ideas, thoughts, and experiences.”

“Our colleagues at Timmersdala are kind, hard-working and willing to share their knowledge with us. We felt very welcomed and appreciated. While working, I learned a lot of new things which got me thinking “Wow, so we can do it in another way!”, says Yanhang Liu, CNC operator at Elos Medtech Tianjin, China.

Kaibo Sun, Production Technician at Elos Medtech in Tianjin, China, agrees with Yanhang Liu and adds: “I learned new processing programs and technology, which will help us brainstorm new ideas for the production of dental parts at our Tianjin site.”

Also, the employees at Timmersdala saw many benefits with the cooperation. “Having our Chinese colleagues helping us with our production was a very positive experience for us. Due to their knowledge and high understanding of our operations, they were able to quickly start working. We exchanged experiences from our two factories, and also the cultural exchange was very rewarding. We got to know each other in a completely different way, and we would love to work together with them again”, says Joacim Friberg-Bergström, Supervisor CNC at Elos Medtech, Timmersdala.      

A passionate, trustworthy and result-oriented medtech partner

Given the successful result of our global cooperation, we look forward to more opportunities like this in the future. Working as one company allows us to live up to Elos Medtech’s commitment to be passionate, trustworthy, and result-oriented. Taking responsibility and keeping our promises serves as a compass for how we work, which is to create the best value for all parties, through cooperation and participation.

I hope you enjoyed reading our blog article about how we work as one company. Feel free to visit our website for more information about what we do, and don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions.  

There is an increasing demand for high-quality products and solutions in the medtech industry. Therefore, we are constantly striving towards systematically developing and improving our ways of working. To facilitate this work, “Operational Excellence and Continuous Improvements”, is one of our focus areas at Elos Medtech. In this blog article, I will introduce you to how we are working with Operational Excellence and how it benefits our customers.

The journey to optimize internal processes in the medtech industry

“Operational Excellence” is a well-established and widely used term today, but there are differences in the interpretation of its meaning. Generally, it is described as the journey to optimize an organization’s internal processes so it can create more value to the customers, using less resources. Operational Excellence is not a fixed goal, rather it is something that is regularly achieved and, therefore, it requires ongoing improvements and investments.

Continuous improvements to achieve Operational Excellence

As a global development and production partner in the medtech industry, our main priority is to serve our customers with high-quality medical device products. To achieve that goal, it is important to constantly and systematically develop and improve our own production processes. By applying Operational Excellence to our business we create a more efficient production with high traceability and accuracy. That enables us to offer high-quality medical device products with short lead times, and meet our customers’ demands of capacity and innovation in the medtech industry. In both a short and long term perspective.  

At Elos Medtech, we have been working with continuous improvements for years and it has increasingly become a natural part of our daily work. The entire organization is involved in identifying opportunities for streamlining tasks and reducing waste of time and resources. To further facilitate this, we have made it to one of our strategic focus areas for the upcoming years to ensure a strong platform for sustainable growth.

Improve efficiency, capacity and value using Lean Manufacturing principles

The process of shaping and building more efficient production systems is often achieved with Lean as a systematic method. The principles of Lean Manufacturing are focused on identifying and eliminating the parts of a production process that are not adding value to the customer. Continuous improvement is a Lean improvement technique that helps to streamline workflows. Efficient workflows save time and money, allowing us to reduce wasted time and effort and thereby achieve higher capacity and efficiency.

Analysis of current performance and implementation of improvements

Elos Medtech is now running a project called “Elos Medtech Operational Excellence” (EMOPEX) that will cover various actions towards operational excellence. An initial part of EMOPEX has been to conduct an overall value-stream analysis based on how we work today and to identify potentials for improvement. Also, a number of key areas that are important for us to achieve Operational Excellence were defined. Increasing our level of automation and creating a demand-driven production are examples of these areas. Strategic competence development is another.     

The next step is to use the results of the value-stream mapping as a basis for a pilot program for several improvement initiatives of the production system at Elos Medtech in Timmersdala. Measures are also taken for the identified potentials for improvements as well as key areas. The improvements will be continuously discussed and shared within Elos Medtech. This way, the entire organization gets involved in the journey towards Operational Excellence and benefits our customers globally. The findings and results will enable Elos Medtech to shape a manufacturing platform for the future demands of growth.

In an upcoming blog article, we will give you an in-depth look at the project at Elos Medtech Timmersdala. Stay tuned!

Would you like to know more about EMOPEX? Feel free to contact me with questions or visit our website or knowledge blog for more information and news. Also, don’t forget to visit us on social media!