Picking a custom medical cart manufacturer is an important decision. You want to get it right the first time so you can avoid spending money and time on costly redesigns and rework. The best advice we can give you is to make sure you’re asking the right questions before you decide to partner with anyone. However, if this is your first time choosing a manufacturer, you might not know what to ask. That’s why we put together this list of questions to help you out.
It’s helpful to have design engineering and concepts developed by a team who understands how to design for manufacturing. If you use a design firm, they don’t always consider those details. You might end up with an absolutely beautiful cart that isn’t practical to manufacture.
This is extremely important. Your cart will have to go through IEC 60601-1 testing, and you need confidence that it will pass. Make sure the cart design team makes that a major focus throughout their design process.
HUI has been designing medical carts for 17 years now. Over this time the team has gotten a chance to work on a variety of different medical carts. With custom products, you gain the most knowledge from working on new projects.
If you want to use standard features, make sure the manufacturer has this option available.
Custom carts typically cost more than standard options, so it helps to get an idea of how they handle pricing.
If you want to use a variety of materials, try to get an understanding of their experience incorporating those materials into their designs. Established supply chains for your materials are a good sign the manufacturer can use your choices to create a design that looks great and functions efficiently.
Packaging is a big part of the custom process. They’re ability to design custom packaging will help ensure your medical cart ships without any damages.
Make sure their lead times fit with your expectations.
As with any manufacturer, making sure they have a quality system will ensure they’re following processes to deliver you high quality products.
These questions will let you know if they can handle your project and give you some proof that they’ve been successful with your expected volume before.
Find out where their manufacturing facility is located, if they have one. HUI manufactures carts in-house. We also utilize some local outside suppliers for any products or materials we can’t produce in-house.
If you’d like to keep the design rights, find out who will own the IP and tooling.
See if their standard line is limited to one choice, or if they offer options for customizing their standard medical cart line.
If you don’t have your own testing contacts, discover if the manufacturer offers testing services like IEC 60601 or packaging testing.
Find out how much time it takes on average for the manufacturer to create a custom cart from scratch. You can also ask if it’s quicker to customize one of their standard lines. At HUI, generally it takes 16-20 weeks to develop a custom medical cart from concept to prototype.
Discover if they’re able to design to a target price.
Learn more about what you can expect throughout this stage of the process. Make sure it works for your needs.
Find out how often they expect to provide review meetings.
Discover how strictly they stick to the original concept. What’s acceptable in terms of changes further down the line? Will there be additional costs?
It’s helpful to know how many resources will be assigned to your project. One of the most important roles is the project manager who will keep your project on schedule.
Do they offer both functional and production-grade medical cart prototypes?
If you need to ship internationally, find out if the manufacturer would make that accommodation. You may also want to find out if they’ve ever shipped internationally before.
If you’re interested in adding a specific feature like a cart arm, it helps to ask ahead of time to see if they have any experience with that feature.
We understand that changes often come up during the development stage of the project. Sometimes those requested changes are significant enough to change the scope of the project. Discover how the manufacturer plans to handle these potential cost and timeline changes to make sure their solutions align with your needs.
If the cart goes over budget, find out ahead of time what the team plans to do to help solve those unexpected costs.
Last but not least, this is a good question to ask your manufacturer to get a good understanding of the value they can provide over their competitors. Some things that make HUI’s Medical Business Development team unique are the amount of years are team has dedicated to solely designing medical carts, our design speed, our focus on designing carts that pass IEC 60601-1 standards, and our or ability to design carts for efficient manufacturing.
I hope this blog gave you some ideas of important questions you can ask your custom medical cart manufacturer. It’s best to ask these questions ahead of time, so you’re not blindsided further down the line when you have a cart design that you’re not happy with.
At HUI, we provide you with the truth about what you can expect, and we’ve created a well-oiled development process over the years. We know what clients tend to want, and we provide them with carts they can put their confidence in. If you’d like to ask us any of the questions above, or discuss your own cart project, please contact us today!
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