The medical device industry supply chain in Tijuana can accommodate both simple and complex manufacturing.

Tecma Group of Companies:

Hello and welcome to another installation of Tecma Talk podcast. These, as frequent listeners to these discussions know, are conversations that deal with the topic of manufacturing in Mexico, and issues that are related. Guests are experts that are both internal and external to the Tecma Group of Companies that have expertise in a diversity of areas. Today is no different than any other day in that regard. The individual that we are speaking with today comes to us from outside of the Tecma Group of Companies. His name is Ian Monroy. Ian is an individual that is based in Baja California, Tijuana to be precise. He is well-spoken and well-informed with respect to the supply chain situation and the supplier base that serves the Tijuana and Baja California medical device manufacturing sector. I’d like to welcome you today to Tecma Talk, Ian, and ask that you tell us a little bit about yourself both personally and professionally.

Ian Monroy:

Thank you for the kind introduction. My name is Ian Monroy. I am a season sourcing and supply chain professional with about eighteen years of experience. I hold a Master’s Degree from CETYS Tijuana. I started off in the very different field of international political studies. Live does have its twists, and I ended up working the area of supply chain of industry.

Tecma Group of Companies:

Today, our focus is going to be on the medical device industry. You’ve communicated to me that, over the last several years, that you have become very familiar with the supply chain of the medical device industry. Is that a correct interpretation of comments that you have made in our discussions?

Ian Monroy:

The focus of my comments on the medical device supply chain in Tijuana will be on when I was working for Made in Mexico, that’s a NxStage Medical company out of Boston. NxStage manufactures both the disposable, and the machine, for dialysis therapy. Additionally, we manufactured our own dialysis solution.

When I went to college, I wanted to be a doctor, so, in a way, this is the closest that I have been to studying medicine. I became involved with NxStage. We started off with zero medical device industry supplier base in Tijuana. Since all of our vendors were based on the East Coast, we started moving some vendors, or products better yet, to the West Coast to California and to Baja. That is how I became involved with the medical device industry here in Baja California.

I started participating in the Tijuana-Baja California Medical Cluster, which is a group of companies that are related to the manufacture of medical devices here in Tijuana and Baja California. I became their supply chain committee coordinator.

Tecma Group of Companies:

Between the medical device experience and that which you have had with the medical device cluster organization in Tijuana, you have a broad overview of what is there in terms of both the industry and the industry that constitutes the Tijuana medical device industry supply chain. That second point is what we are interested in learning more about today. First, however, it would be good if you could give us an overview of what the industry looks like in terms of its diversity and role in the local manufacturing economy? I’m sure that the listeners would find that information to be interesting.

Ian Monroy:

The medical device industry has been resident in Baja California and Tijuana for more than twenty-five years. It had its start in the very simple assembly of disposable medical products. Since the beginning, however, the industry has evolved. We have grown at the that has reflected growing demands from American OEMs in terms of increasing complexity in the manufacturing process. We went be on strict assembly and began doing molding, medical device molding, that is. I mean the type of molding that requires a clean [...]