Health Care
& Life Science
Diagnostic equipment for medical use is often both expensive and extremely sensitive. Great care and knowledge is needed to handle and repair it. Working quickly with short lead times is also crucial since diagnostic equipment is a critical tool for care and analyses in hospitals and laboratories.
Since 1999 LGI operates a European repair center for a customer in diagnostic equipment. This allows the customer to focus on its core business which is developing and manufacturing advanced diagnostic equipment while LGI handles repairs, warehousing of spare parts and replacement products as well as deliveries to the end customer. Together with the customer LGI has made a unique journey from being merely a logistics supplier to a full service supplier with a repair center for advanced medical equipment.
At LGI’s European repair center in Ketsch in Germany, advanced diagnostic equipment used in hospitals and laboratories is repaired and refurbished. The customer is one of the leading manufacturers worldwide of diagnostic equipment. When LGI founded the repair center in 1999, it only had a few processes to help the customer get through temporary rushes in the repairs flow. Today, there are over 20 technicians working at the repair center. LGI has a profound knowledge of the customer’s products and continuously offers the employees internal education and training in new products and updates.
The repair center is connected to LGI’s logistics center, which means that necessary spare parts are close at hand and that the product flow back and forth to the end customer is the quickest possible.
LGI also offers the great advantage of onsite repairs at end customers in Germany and Sweden by authorized service providers (ASP), which means the end customer does not need to relinquish equipment crucial for operations.
LGI handles orders and deliveries of diagnostic equipment, spare parts and consumables. Some of them are temperature-controlled or frozen up to -80° C, and therefore need to be maintained in an unbroken cold chain. LGI also organizes the re-use or recycling of discontinued equipment. The customer receives the lion’s share of the sales income if an item is sold.
A benefit that can be derived from this whole model is the lean management that continuously improves the workflow, while augmenting efficiency and reliability in operations.