Company Overview
North American Rescue, located in Greer, SC, is dedicated to decreasing preventable death by providing the most effective and highest quality mission critical medical products to our military, federal agencies, civilian law enforcement, EMS, and pre-hospital life savers. They design, develop, and test these products based on the military’s Tactical Combat Casualty guidelines, Rescue Human Factors engineering, evidence based medicine, and an in-depth understanding of the requirements from their customers.
Situation
North American Rescue was a recipient of the CATALYST grant, an advanced manufacturing assistance program. This grant provided funding and assistance for companies operating in the defense supply chain to assist in the evaluation and adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies. Included in this program, for the company’s benefit, was SCMEP’s Industry 4.0 Assessment.
Solution
SCMEP’s Industry 4.0 Assessment analyzes operations and reviews the potential of advanced manufacturing technologies to establish a competitive advantage. The assessment consisted of 40 questions designed to review the company’s current level of adoption. The outcome provided an independent weighted perspective and, where appropriate, identified the technologies that would have the most impact on the firm’s performance. SCMEP’s assessment also guided North American Rescue through modules of discussion that probed for insights related to utilizing advanced manufacturing technologies to drive improvement in these foundational business elements: leadership, strategy, culture, operations, and growth. Recommendations were made and implements which resulted in the impacts seen below.
Results
Cost savings – $60,000
New investment (information systems or software) – $100,000
New investment (workforce practices) – $50,000
New investment (other areas of business) – $100,000
Investment savings – $50,000
New investment (new products/processes) – $100,000
“I am extremely satisfied with the professionalism, knowledge, and overall great support provided by SCMEP. They have been a wonderful resource to provide North American Rescue with a range of innovative strategies and solutions to improve our competitiveness performance and profitability; and has done so on multiple projects contributing to our significant growth from a small to medium size company.”
James Carino, Vice President