More Medical Devices, Less Red Tape

The FDA recently announced that they have reached a tentative user fee deal with the $105.8 billion U.S. medical device industry. The deal allows the FDA to collect around $500 million from the various companies over the next five years. In return, for this near doubling of fees, companies - and in turn patients - will benefit from a faster and more transparent review process.

While this might not seem like front-page news to most people, it is to us. The U.S. medical device market is the world’s largest. As a country, we spend $339 per person, per year on medical devices. America is home to 7 out of 10 of the world’s largest manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, Baxter, Covidien and Medtronic. A faster and more streamlined approval process means more medical devices getting a green light for production.

At Keats, we specialize in the kind of small metal stampings, wireforms, and assemblies that are crucial to making exacting medical devices.  We recently designed and built over 3,000,000 wire links for a leading medical device maker.   The Florida-based medical device maker came to Keats because they needed their medical device parts to be durable, consistent, and exacting. It’s not the kind of component you want made by just anyone. You might even say it’s a matter a life and death.

Many of these devices play critical roles in keeping people alive and well. Because of this, the quality control experts at Keats go to extraordinary length to make sure that nothing leaves our facilities before it is subjected to rigorous inspection and testing.   

Over the next few months, we’ll do our best to keep you informed about how the FDA’s faster review process will directly affect our industry and most importantly, you and your loved ones.

Keats and Autodesk: a winning and innovative team

At Keats, we make some of the most intricate custom small metal stampings, wire forms, and assemblies around.  At all three of our locations, we are proud to bring our customers high-quality services and excellent design capabilities.  Unlike some of our competitors, Keats engineers all of our own dies and tools. This kind of customization allows us to guarantee our clients the tightest tolerances and a consistently high level of quality. In order to bring our clients this amount of technical expertise, we use the best tools available. In the case of designing and engineering, no tool is more helpful than Autodesk’s AutoCAD software.

Autodesk is a proud American company that makes the world’s leading 2D and 3D CAD (computer-aided design) software. Much like Keats, Autodesk is an industry leader in their field, and they are committed to innovation, customer service, and cost competitiveness.  Every year Autodesk releases a new, more advanced, and user-friendly version of their award winning software.  Like Keats, they never rest on their past achievements. They know that you build long-term relationships by keeping your customers happy and always being ahead of the curve.  To top it all off, they were recently included in CNBC.com’s list of 15 companies with zero debt. Not many companies can say that these days.  It’s a sign that like Keats, Autodesk is committed to fiscal responsibility without sacrificing innovation and customer service. 

If you want to learn more about how we utilize Autodesk’s AutoCAD software to custom engineer our tools and dies, check out our website or give one of our design experts a call today.

U.S. and European Steel Prices

If your company relies on a steady supply of steel, you are probably quite aware that the price of U.S. benchmark hot-rolled coil steel recently hit a two-year high of $783 a ton. At the same time, European steel prices have fallen, leaving a $128-a-ton gap between the two regions. That’s both good and bad news. Good, because the improvement in prices on this side of the Atlantic means that manufacturers and suppliers are responding to some very welcomed, upbeat economic data, like a drop in new unemployment claims, a rise in the ISM purchasing managers’ index, and the highest steel mill production since the beginning of the financial crisis.

It’s bad news because higher prices for raw materials all too often do need to be dispersed between manufacturer and customer. Also, the slew of negative European economic factors equals lower overseas demand and sales.

Because we’re a company built on long-term relationships, we just want to let you know that we’re doing everything we can to control costs so you don’t feel the pinch. If your prices do increase, we want you to know why. As a trusted vendor of high-quality steel stampings, wire, and assemblies, we watch the trends and pricing forecasts closely to stay competitive and cost-effective for our customers.

With this in mind, Keats wants to promise everyone that we will make every effort to keep you informed about any price fluctuations that might affect your bottom line.

Prices rise and prices fall, but just know that our quality and commitment to you, the customer, will always remain high.