Medline Opens New Surgical Procedure Tray Manufacturing and Assembly Facility

MUNDELEIN, Ill. -- As part of a long-range expansion plan, Medline Industries, Inc., recently opened a new state-of-the-art manufacturing and assembly facility in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The 217,525 square-foot building is Medline's sixth manufacturing facility and its second facility producing custom surgical procedure trays (SPTs) and E-Kits (efficiency kits or sterile minor procedure trays).

The new facility services Medline's customers in North America, which include hospitals and surgery centers.

"Our customers are benefiting today by the increasingly competitive marketplace that is helping to drive SPT prices down," said Charlie Mills, chief executive officer of Medline. "However, we thrive in this environment and can take lower cost business because of our efficient operation. We are debt free, deliver direct to the marketplace, have a large sales force that provides outstanding customer service and we are privately held with a stable management team."

In addition to agreements with some of the largest health care systems in the country, Medline now has contracts with most every major group purchasing organization, including Ascension, Broadlane, HealthSouth, HPG, HMA, HSCA, Kaiser, MedAssets, Novation and Premier.

As with all Medline facilities, the new building employs the highest quality standards and latest technology to produce high quality products. The building is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) registered facility and adheres to the FDA's Quality System Regulation (QSR) standards. On-site Quality Assurance inspectors tightly monitor all incoming products and outgoing finished goods, as well as examine all production processes.

The facility features a certified clean room where the assembly of the surgical procedure trays takes place. To ensure optimum cleanliness, the Medline clean room is designed and built as a controlled environment featuring special air filters where workers are required to adhere to special gowning and sanitary standards.

Some of the facility's latest technological advancements include automated sorting devices and multi-level pick modules to streamline picking the components used in the surgical trays; radio frequency bar code scanning; and the latest in form fill and seal packaging machines. In addition, the new building contains dust controlled curtain walls as a further measure in achieving a highly clean warehouse environment.

Medline's surgical procedure trays include medical components for a number of common procedures, including angiography, open heart, orthopedic, ophthalmic, labor & delivery and general surgery, among others. The E*Kit line includes IV Start Kits, Central Line Dressing Change Trays, Laceration Trays, Suture Removal Trays, Trach Care Kits, Circumcision Trays and Wound Care Kits and many others.

Medline also offers its Complete Delivery System (CDS), a procedure-based supply management system, which combines all sterile and non-sterile perioperative supplies required for a specific procedure and puts them in one container. With all the products in one container, a CDS saves hospitals time in setting up surgical procedures, standardizing products and reducing costs per procedure.

Source: Medline