Learning, Doubling Throughput, and Having Fun

Founded in 1972, Argon Medical began its journey as a guidewire manufacturer, named after the argon gas used in the tipping process of certain guidewires. Over the past 50 years, the company has evolved into a leader in innovative medical devices that enable caregivers to deliver improved patient outcomes.

With a dedicated team of over 1,000 employees worldwide, Argon Medical supports a growing network of hospitals, clinics, and medical facilities in more than 114 countries. The company has improved procedural efficiencies and developed innovative product lines for interventionalists and specialists across multiple fields.

Argon Medical’s spirit of innovation is demonstrated through its renowned brands, including Option™ELITE, Cleaner™, BioPince™Ultra, SKATER™, and Scorpion®. The company proudly serves over 5,000 customers directly through its internal sales organization, along with long-standing partnerships with medical device distributors and strategic allies, and as a contracted manufacturing partner.

Relentlessly dedicated to enhancing the efficacy of the caregivers it supports and the patients they treat, Argon Medical continues to lead the way in medical device innovation.

Argon Medical’s leadership at their manufacturing facility in Athens, Texas, aimed to enhance the utilization of existing capacity in two key value streams to boost throughput for several of their products serving larger customers.

Specifically, they aimed to reduce work in process (WIP), synchronize station times, and double the throughput in the introducer and guidewire assembly processes. Introducers are a type of sheath or tube used to assist in guiding surgical tools through tissue, such as a guidewire or a catheter.

Doubling throughput is an ambitious goal, and Argon needed expert assistance to achieve it, so they contacted the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center (TMAC).

With TMAC’s guidance, Argon Medical assembled a target team consisting of individuals from on-site and corporate Quality, area supervisors, product engineers, maintenance, continuous improvement, and frontline operators. The team aimed to maximize existing capacity by reducing waste, identifying value, mapping the value stream, creating flow, establishing pull, and consistently leveling the work.

The team conducted an informational kick-off session with TMAC and chose a Kaizen approach for rapid improvement. After some foundational training on lean manufacturing practices, the first step was to select the value stream and map the process flow. The team developed a value stream map by timing and mapping each value-added process for all information and materials leading up to and including assembly.

By conducting process analysis, they identified opportunities to increase capacity by redesigning the batching process for each material before it was sent to assembly, modifying the layout in certain areas of the production floor to enhance flow and minimize waste, and organizing the value-added processes into improvement loops.

Reducing batch sizes allowed the team to synchronize part production times more efficiently and establish a materials supermarket that continuously supplies assembly. This adjustment more than doubled throughput in certain areas, facilitating future capacity expansion. Argon’s team achieved an ideal balance for optimal product flow.