How R-Solution Medical’s vision of the future is enabled by IIoT

Innius BV is proud to announce that it has been chosen as the Industrial IoT (IIoT) solution provider for R-Solution Medical’s packaging robots. The machines, known as R-APPIT, are used to automate the process of packaging reusable medical instruments in hospitals. One of the goals of this collaboration is to provide usage insights that ultimately enable R-Solution Medical to offer a pay-per-use business model.

R-Solution Medical

R-Solution Medical is a pioneer in the field of automated packaging of reusable medical instruments. R-Solution Medical was founded in 2017 by Mariska van der Vliet and Niels Welling, who saw a great opportunity to automate the traditional manual process of packaging reusable medical instruments with the packaging robot they invented and developed. It was their ambition to create an automated solution that can package medical instrument sets and improve the logistics process. This has resulted in the development of the R-APPIT medical packing robot.

The groundbreaking R-APPIT robotic machine

The R-APPIT medical packing robot is a compact solution that works faster, more accurately, cleaner and more consistently than the current manual method, providing a solution for the shortage of qualified personnel, sustainability requirements and the increasing quality standards in the medical sector.

In hospitals where the R-APPIT is used, the robot can pack up to 90% of the instrument sets, which were previously packed manually by employees of the Central Sterilization Department. Using the R-APPIT gives the staff the opportunity to work on the other critical processes where they can create added value. The R-APPIT medical packing robot is patented worldwide and has the potential to become a standard part of every modern medical facility, both in the Netherlands and abroad.

One of the other benefits of using the R-APPIT is that about 25% less packaging material is used compared to manual packing. It thus makes a significant contribution to sustainability and efficiency within hospitals without compromising on the quality of the sterile instrument sets.

An ambitious vision

In addition to the development of their groundbreaking machines, R-Solution Medical’s innovative attitude also influences R-Solution’s business model. Currently, the R-APPIT medical packing robots are bought by hospitals, which become the owners of the robots, and R-Solution Medical provides maintenance on the R-APPIT. But in the long term, Mariska van der Vliet and Niels Welling believe this will change: ‘Our vision for the future, based on how we see the market developing, is that machines will ultimately be delivered to our customers on a pay-per-use basis’. This transition to a different business model is not without challenges. By retaining ownership of the machine, R-Solution Medical is responsible for ensuring the maximum available uptime of the machines. To do this, they need to know when to perform maintenance, how to optimize reliability in machine designs, and when to reorder packaging materials.

Industrial IoT as a basis for servitization

Servitization is the transformation of the company from a product-oriented to a service-oriented business model. Usually with the aim of realizing a good and long-term relationship with the customer.

To shape this servitisation, R-Solution Medical has chosen Innius BV as its Industrial IoT solution provider. With the permission of their customers, the R-APPIT machines can be connected to the innius platform. This gives R-Solution Medical insight into key performance indicators, such as the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of the machine and insight into ordering patterns of packaging materials. As this data accumulates over time, the insights become more accurate. They also gain insight into when machines need to be serviced, which spare parts need to be ordered and when packaging materials need to be replenished. This lays the foundation for a servitised business model as R-Solution Medical gains the knowledge to minimize the risks associated with machine ownership, namely repair costs and downtime.

John Rijksen, Managing Director at Innius BV, says: ‘It is crucial that machine builders think about how they can add services to their businesses in order to maintain a competitive advantage in the future. Servitization is not something that can be introduced overnight. It requires knowledge and expertise built up in advance. We are honored that R-Solution Medical has adopted Innius to be part of their servitization journey’.