Finishing - July-August 2023

28 INSTALLATIONS
Seco helps Italian business grow
Business has been growing so
quickly for Italian medical implant
manufacturer Permedica that it
can barely keep up with demand.
However, a new strategy for its
CNC department, in partnership
with Seco Tools, has started to
make a powerful increase to its
productivity.
The global market in medical
implants is booming. One
estimate says that the compound
annual growth rate (CAGR)
between 2022 and 2030 will be
5.4%, increasing the overall value
from $95.1 billion to $145.6
billion.
Over the past decade, this
constant upward trend has seen
Italian-based implant
manufacturer Permedica
transform itself from being a wellrespected
name in its native
market to becoming an
international business. The
company now has subsidiaries in
Switzerland, Germany, India,
Austria, South Korea, Australia,
and France, with plans for
expansion to the UK and US in
the pipeline. Export now makes
up 60% of its 35 million annual
turnover.
But Permedica’s rapid growth
has posed what the company’s
Sales Manager Federico Perego
calls “extreme challenges” to its
productivity.
“Many distributors, partners
and surgeons love our products
for their design and quality, so
they keep demanding more and
more. Unfortunately, we can’t
keep up with current demand,
and how the CAGR rate is
increasing in our sector,” says
Federico, the son of Permedica’s
founder and President, Marco
Perego.
Initially, the management tried
to address this by increasing
resources.
“We were trying to solve the
problems internally by investing
in more people for our company
and streamlining the training
process to perform a better
method of manufacturing,” says
Federico.
“However, it was a problem of
multiple issues that characterise
our complex operational structure.
And the family nature of our
business makes it important for us
to solve problems because we
haven’t got the time or resources
to do everything.”
The turning point came when
the parent of one of the
company’s distributors suggested
a meeting with Seco in 2022.
That began an improvement
journey, and a partnership, that
continue to gather momentum to
this day.
After an initial assessment of
the factory by South Europe
Cluster Manager Steven Bell,
Permedica and Seco Tools Italy
agreed to start a pilot to address
a key productivity bottleneck in
Permedica’s CNC department
that was creating problems for the
supply chain in its hip cup
products.
“One of our machines could
not operate at night due to the
programming and the kinds of
tools we were using. The material
was overheating, which was
stopping the machine and
meaning that it couldn’t be
programmed to operate
automatically during the night,”
Federico explains.
“Due to Steven being so clear
and practical in his assessment of
the problem, and because he had
a team and a structured proposal
to manage the issue, I
automatically trusted them with a
pilot. Steven and Seco were
always very direct in relation to
the issue and in proposing a
better solution. They didn’t make
a promise they couldn’t keep, and
they didn’t just try to sell us tools.
Instead, they helped us to solve
what was an important issue for
Permedica.”
One of the Seco Tools Italy
team working with Permedica,
Manufacturing Transformation
Manager Matteo Foglietta, adds,
“We were able to address swarf
issues that were a big problem for
the night shift.
“So Permedica has gained not
only more productivity in terms of
a shorter cycle time, but also an
increase in capacity of the
machine during the night in the
unmanned shift. This is also
thanks to the global competence
from our innovation hub that we
can bring to the customer side
through the local and technical
expertise here in Italy.”
Federico Perego estimates that
this initial success has helped to
increase Permedica’s productivity
by more than 40%. Now further
initiatives, including the installation
of tool vending machines to help
with warehouse management, are
underway.
Finishing – July/August 2023