Celestica Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

Vicarious Surgical Chief Operating Officer John Mazzola [Photo courtesy of Vicarious Surgical]

Capping off a medtech career spanning more than three decades, John Mazzola had only been retired from Becton Dickinson for about a week when Vicarious Surgical co-founder and CEO Adam Sachs hired him to lead strategic manufacturing planning.

One year later, the surgical robotics developer has promoted Mazzola to the newly created position of chief operating officer, covering product development, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, clinical, regulatory, IT, people and culture.

Related: Surgical robotics trends and how to accelerate adoption

Mazzola spoke with Medical Design & Outsourcing about the latest from Waltham, Massachusetts-based Vicarous Surgical (NYSE: RBOT), its plans for manufacturing and outsourcing, the company’s recent layoffs and lessons learned about developing and launching …

Use strategic collaboration to overcome these five common medtech product development challenges.

Overcoming product-development barriers — the topic of a recent Device Talks Tuesdays webinar sponsored by Celestica — requires the elimination of design silos and the embracement of partnering opportunities. So how does this happen? Kevin Walsh, VP of Celestica’s HealthTech Division, and Kevin McFarlin, engineering director, had some answers.

“It’s all about protecting and nurturing a company’s intellectual property in order to get to market as soon as possible,” Walsh said.

As a service provider for OEMs and startups, “we’re looking to mistake-proof the manufacturing and assembly processes,” added McFarlin, who outlined five common product design challenges and strategies for overcoming them.

1. Usability engineering: Establish priorities

Stressing the criticality of a medical device’s ease of use, Walsh emphasized that it is fundamental to widespread adop…

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Q&A with John Mazzola, Vicarious Surgical’s first chief operations officer

Here’s how you achieve proactive product development