Home medical equipment maker GF Health Products Inc. has launched a “Back in the USA” in which it will move select manufacturing back to the United States.
“Our customers are looking for unique products, greater flexibility relative to product features, and more efficient logistics,” Lawrence de la Haba, Graham-Field’s senior vice president of business development, in a prepared statement. “Domestic manufacturing allows us to meet these needs. There are definite advantages to having products manufactured and assembled in the United States. The logistics are more streamlined; you have greater production run flexibility and can more easily customize products in response to customer requirements.”
The first product line produced under this initiative is Graham-Field’s Patriot Homecare Bed, which integrates headboards and footboards manufactured overseas with the domestically produced Grid Deck sleep surface. Grid Deck features a patent-pending slot system for easier bed rail installation.
“A very interesting phenomenon has occurred over the past several years,” said Ken Spett, Graham-Field executive vice president. “Domestic component manufacturers, once they learned of our initiative, could not wait to help us.
“As outsourcing became the buzzword in the healthcare industry and many manufacturing-based jobs were lost to overseas manufacturers, domestic manufacturers had to re-tool and re-learn to stay competitive,” Spett continued. “They have approached us with higher quality products, the ability to customize parts and components for us, and will even follow us around the globe to wherever we manufacture our products.”
