COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL
Ventec Life Systems (US Pacific NW)
When in early 2020 Ventec Life Systems received an emergency order from the U.S. Government for 30,000 new VOCSN V+Pro ventilators, the 4-year-old company – which previously manufactured around 1,000 devices per year – faced a daunting production challenge even with manufacturing partner GM on board. Rapid scaling, an extremely abbreviated timeline and temporary manufacturing facilities, however, introduced several new quality issues. An initial failure rate of 37% threatened to delay or derail the initiative.
Recognizing an immediate need to expand failure analysis capabilities, Ventec's leadership brought on new engineering staff to help identify and eliminate points of failure from the production line. Statistical analysis in JMP played a key role in helping the newly formed team to get to the bottom of quality issues, quickly build consensus and introduce actionable solutions.
Juliette Plager talks about the win (4:21)
Ultimately, the full federal order for 30,000 VOCSN V+Pro critical care ventilators was delivered on schedule in just 154 days. And by the end of Ventec’s partnership with GM, the factory was running at a pace of one ventilator completed every seven minutes with a 92% quality rate, up from 63% just months earlier.
Since the company's initial JMP purchase, they have expanded use of the tool to 21 total users. "Discovery Summit, Mastering JMP and STIPS have all been critical for growth," says Senior Systems Engineer Jordan Hiller.
Statistical approaches in JMP have also been instrumental in Ventec's ability to identify and implement the most cost-efficient solutions to variability. In one example, engineers traced a quality issue to a 30-cent aluminum component on a $400 compressor. Instead of replacing the entire compressor on 6,000 units (at a cost of $2.4 million), they could instead replace the single part for far less ($1,800).
