Why is custom software so much more efficient for an organization?
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Timothy Campos, the CIO of Facebook(link is external), revealed that the key to the company's high productivity and concurrent per-employee revenue is efficiency. "Efficiency" means, of course, obtaining maximum output with minimum input, or no wasted resources or efforts. And while we all agree in concept that efficiency is important in any business setting, it can get confusing to see how efficiency applies to the medical device industry, where there is such a necessity for careful and methodical process to ensure efficacy and safety. One key way to achieve efficiency in medical device development is in the same way recommended by Campos: custom software.
Campos indicates that the key to Facebook's efficiency actually comes from custom software solutions that they have developed that allow them to keep processes as-is but improve them. Instead of trying to buy off-the-shelf software and adapting their processes—which requires a slow-down to learn the software, train on the new process, and implement it—the software designers are able to come in, see how things are done, identify opportunities for greater efficiency, and write software that will do just that. It's all about identifying tasks that are repeated and letting a computer take over the repeatability.
Talk about flexible tools for production and test efficiency – how could your manual or tedious processes in the medical device industry be written into code? Once that code is implemented, verified, and validated for your process – you have a tool that can make you efficient again and again.