Innokas Medical and the Norwegian company Luzmon Medical AS have recently signed a manufacturing contract for the Luzmon’s cTEMS and cTENS system including some NPI and sourcing work. The agreement brought a completely new customer to Innokas, so this new contract can be seen as a significant step in Innokas’ growth and internationalization path.
The Luzmon cTEMS device is developed with the intended use of Improving health and performance by preservation, restoration and improvement of skeletal muscle.
“The background of the device relates to my personal life", says Louise Mohn, Founder and Owner of Luzmon Medical AS.
"I was left with chronic pain for more than nine years due to debilitating injuries in my childhood, caused by excessive exercise. After trying several different therapies, the combination of heat and electrical muscle stimulation left me pain free. This is where the story of Luzmon began”, she elaborates.
The company has made decades of research around TENS, EMS and thermal therapy, and the studies show that these therapies are very efficient for both prevention and rehabilitation of the human body. Luzmon has developed their proprietary system together with cooperation partners around Europe, and the system will be ready for actual manufacturing during the year of 2018.
Co-operation across borders
At the first phase of the cooperation Innokas has worked closely with Luzmon and their UK based R&D partner Plexus in offering manufacturability support to companies as they are finalizing the design of the system. Innokas’ NPI team and engineers have e.g. evaluated the initial, clinically proved medical concept of the system and requirements with cost-efficient manufacturability rules.
“The manufacturability analysis Innokas made to Luzmon’s system allowed us to critically look at the structure of the product to identify the most potential points for cost-efficient manufacturing. We analyzed the structure of Luzmon’s system to ensure the best possible production methods to enable an appropriate and cost-efficient system assembly. This can lead directly to lower manufacturing costs without compromising the quality of the product”, tells Antti Virtanen, working as Head of Project Management Office at Innokas and also as an Account Manager to Luzmon customer.
In addition to manufacturability analysis, Innokas has also utilized its’ professional, qualified network of suppliers for example with material and component selections, created a project plan for design transfer as well as designed the first concept drafts of the system testers. Luzmon Medical’s CEO Erlend Stromnes tells that the company has been very satisfied with the cooperation with Innokas.
“The project has now entered into the stage where sourcing and BOM are in focus. There is a close cooperation between Luzmon and our partner companies within product development, testing and certification. The whole team of Innokas are important contributors to secure our future success”, he says.
Stromnes tells that the company chose Innokas as manufacturing partner especially because of Innokas’ strong references and the high-class quality factors.
“Innokas was chosen through a careful selection process, of course, where competence, quality, implementation capacity and reference products was among the selected variables. After the evaluation made by Luzmon, Innokas turned out to be the best choice for us”, Stromnes states.
The system is now at the prototyping phase and the design transfer will start at Innokas during the first half of next year, and the actual manufacturing will start after the summer of 2018. Virtanen sees that the agreement made with Luzmon is very significant for Innokas, especially from the perspective of internationalization and Innokas growth.
“Signing the agreement with Luzmon is again one concrete result of our efforts to grow internationally. It is great to see the commitment by both companies to a long term partnership”, Virtanen concludes.
