There’s no fundamental difference between persuasion and manipulation, in my opinion, except for perhaps maliciousness. Under this way of looking at it, companies that offer value propositions to customers and convince them to buy a better product are engaging in persuasion, while companies hiding the weaknesses of a flawed product are engaging in…[Read more]

I want to second Ronak in that it is unfair to compare a generic medical device company to a giant like Apple that makes products aimed at the general market. Apple benefits from the massive media coverage and public interest their exposiums generate. Meanwhile, a medical device company generally has a very small target audience.

For this…[Read more]

As Gabriel said, choosing a job can be difficult for newcomers. As such, a decision to join a company based on its specific characteristics is often a luxury that only experienced employees can have. Barring any massive red flags, such as a history of fraud, an engineering student will generally not have a huge amount of options regarding choosing…[Read more]

Intel, the well-known chipset manufacturer, has published the following metrics (all of which are TTM, or the “trailing twelve months” data).

Intel has had a revenue of $61.7 billion, with a gross margin of 62.1%. The gross margin is a measure of the percentage of money a company keeps on each sale, which it can then use to service its debts,…[Read more]

People generally don’t think of corporations as “subchapter s” or “c-corps” primarily because most large corporations people see are C-Corporations. A C-Corporation has significantly higher potential to grow than a c-corp because of its ability to have >100 shareholders and acquire foreign investment. S-corps, meanwhile, are the format favored by…[Read more]

Document control is also essential to prevent information loss. It’s not unheard of for a particularly knowledgeable employee’s loss (due to any reason, from resignation to death) to cripple an R&D/manufacturing project, a QA program, or a related process. Document control ensures that a company can keep important information in place in case of…[Read more]

One common bias found in the business world is “Discounting the Future.” This bias prevents people from seeing the value in future investments and causes them to chase after things that save money and provide immediate benefit, even at a future cost. We see this all the time. For example, companies often choose to focus on objectives that will…[Read more]

I believe Scott’s first point – that everyone must buy into a “culture” of quality – is extremely essential. A number of workplaces will have a “not my problem” attitude when it comes to quality. Quality is also sacrificed when middle managers cut corners in an attempt to meet unreasonable demands set by executive managers. When a company has a…[Read more]

The FDA is responsible for ensuring the safety of biomedical devices that are available in the United States. Precision and accuracy are both factors that affect how doctors and patients will react to results from a medical instrument, and so both are vital to ensuring safety standards. Accuracy is how close an instrument’s result is to that of a…[Read more]

Cheaper medical device registrant fees are effectively subsidies to the medical device industry. The utility of such subsidies seems significantly higher than a federal budget cut of 0.06%. The nature of this cost increase, as the article points out, is more damaging to smaller companies. But innovative solutions in the Biomedical Engineering…[Read more]

The standard example generally given to justify the FDA’s rules is Thalidomide, which resulted in thousands of babies being born with deformed limbs because their mothers used it during pregnancy. Hailed as a wonder drug that treated insomnia, mild depression, and morning sickness, it was available in most of Europe but had not been approved for…[Read more]

While I have never encountered a catastrophic failure for the clinical research we do in our lab, we have encountered a number of setbacks. The most common reason for these is rushing and failing to follow directions perfectly to maximize speed. One example was a situation where a large amount of clinical data was lost because a user entered the…[Read more]

As far as a company producing products is concerned, research for the future is even more important than research for the “now.” This is true for almost any company that isn’t monopolizing a particular market (in which case, research isn’t essential at all, which is one of the reasons why monopolies are undesirable).

However, in a world where…[Read more]

Very generally speaking, the distance of the institute conducting the research is not a huge concern in the face of modern communication technology and shipping availability. The most important factor in this particular decision is whether the university chosen was the best one for this particular job. It is possible, albeit seemingly unlikely,…[Read more]

Krp76 is absolutely right about a manager needing experience to avoid mistakes and issues during a project. A technical background helps a manager avoid make small but potentially catastrophic mistakes. Further, a manager with an experienced background will have realistic expectations and an idea of how a project will develop. For these reasons,…[Read more]

I will confirm that Microsoft Project is a great tool, with a variety of options. Another popular project management tool that may have also been used by some of my classmates is Asana, which is a web and mobile application. Asana comes in free and paid versions (the free version lacks customer service support and allows up to 15 members). Do any…[Read more]

Although I do not have industry experience, my (limited) experience in working with hierarchical groups leads me to believe that having multiple managers can sometimes be a recipe for disaster. Being a manager promotes a sense of responsibility. A project manager for the “X Development Project” knows that, at the end of the day, he is responsible…[Read more]

As a hopeful medical student, I took this course because working on medical products is something I would love to do as a doctor. As a doctor, I would be in a position to provide valuable consulting expertise, but I would need to distinguish myself from the many other doctors in the employment market by bringing an understanding of medical device…[Read more]

While a lot of us feel that NJIT does not provide enough practical courses (and probably rightfully so), it is important to note that NJIT, as far as I know, does not notably lag behind other universities in this regard. Lack of practical courses, then, seems to be a failing of the educational system in general rather than a specific failure of…[Read more]

I definitely agree that time flexibility is a significant advantage of Academia. Industry, of course, pays better, but it is important to note that pay and advancements depend on your work being noticed, and your efforts may not be acknowledged if you are not good at marketing yourself (i.e. others can sometimes end up taking credit). This is true…[Read more]