Business
When Swiss-born Bruno Wuest founded Wuestec in Mobile, Ala., in 1991, he already had established a name for himself in the X-ray field, specifically in the area of mechanical design. His experience and expertise with general conventional, film-based radiography equipment set the company’s direction and quickly became Wuestec’s stock-in-trade. From 1994 to 1996, Wuestec broadened its product line, moving into additional film-based products, such as C-arms and various configurations of radiography and fluoroscopy systems.
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Wuestec Inc. |
T I M E L I N E1991: Wuestec Inc. is founded by Bruno Wuest. The company initially offers conventional, film-based radiography equipment. 1995: Wuestec broadens its product line, moving into additional film-based products, such as C-arms and various configurations of radiography and fluoroscopy systems. 1996: Wuestec embraces digital, investing in charged-couple device (CCD) technology. 1997: Wuestec enters into a joint venture with Samsung Corp. (Japan), forming DigiX Research Corp. (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). As a result, Wuestec reaps the benefits of Samsung’s sales and distribution network and technology support. DigiX eventually becomes a wholly-owned company of Wuestec that serves primarily as an R&D facility. 1999: Wuestec forms an alliance with Planet Corp. (Seoul, Korea) to design and manufacture hand-held products that will allow an image to be taken off a monitor and carried anywhere by a radiologist wishing to conduct further analysis; Planet and Wuestec unveil their MP3 player, a voice recording system with playback capabilities; Wuestec joins with iGate (Louisville, Ky.) to develop a video, data and image communication technology that runs on existing network cabling for leading teleradiology solutions. Their product involves a patented multifiber modem that splits channels so that images and data can travel across the cable simultaneously. 2000: Wuestec enters into partnership with: Silicon Graphics (Santa Rosa, Calif.) for high-end computer workstations; Agfa Corp. (Ridgefield, N.J.) for film printers; and Data-Ray (Englewood, Colo.) for high-end monitors for X-ray diagnosis; Wuestec launches DX2000 digital radiography product line featuring 11.9 million pixels with 4.1 lp/mm and 15 second diagnostic images. Key ManagementCEO, Chairman??? Bruno Wuest |
In 1996, the company turned its attention to digital X-ray technology, choosing to exploit charged-couple device (CCD) camera technology, rather than follow what Wuestec saw as the industry’s stampede toward flat-panel solutions. In the years since then, Wuestec has focused its research and development (R&D) efforts on the potential and growth it believes are inherent in CCD technology, yet continues to offer customers a film-based product line.
As part of its new focus, Wuestec looked to partner within the industry. In the two-year period between 1997 and 1999, it formed a joint venture with Samsung (Japan). The new partnership, known as DigiX Research Corporation and located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, allowed Wuestec to reap the benefits of Samsung’s sales and distribution network and technology support. Giant Samsung also offered little Wuestec access to some R&D equipment Wuestec could not afford on its own at the time. DigiX has since become a wholly owned subsidiary of Wuestec and, while Wuestec prefers not to disclose the nature of its current ties with Samsung, the company acknowledges that it continues to receive Samsung’s support, particularly in the areas of sales and marketing.
The company employs approximately 50 employees between its Mobile headquarters – where it houses its manufacturing, engineering, sales, marketing, and warehousing operations – and DigiX, which serves primarily as a R&D facility.
Like most companies of its type, Wuestec relies on a dealer network to augment its direct-sales efforts. Wuestec says its enjoys a network of 100-plus dealers, with current contacts in Africa, India, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
Wuestec is privately owned. A corporate officer declined to provide sales or market share figures or to release any information about the company’s financials, including revenue ranges or growth projections, saying only that the company is “currently experiencing double-digit growth.” Sixty-five percent of Wuestec’s total sales are outside the United States, with the remaining 35 percent within the United States.
Chief Competitors
Wuestec likes to characterize itself as having no competition because it claims to be the only company focusing on the “knowledge of the X-ray image”: analyzing it, transferring it, and leveraging digital technology to provide customers with a complete medical solution.
On the medical equipment side, however, Wuestec competes with a gamut of well-known, well-entrenched companies, such as GE Medical Systems (GEMS of Waukesha, Wis.), Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc. (Tustin, Calif.), Siemens Medical Systems Inc. (Iselin, N.J.), Philips Medical Systems North America (Shelton, Conn.) and Trixell S.A.S. (Moirans, France).
On the video communications side, it pits itself against such companies as ViTel Net (Visual Telecommunications Network Inc. of McLean, Va.) and Tanberg (Oslo, Norway).
When it comes to trading in CCD technology, Wuestec is not alone. Advanced Instrument Development Inc. (AID of Melrose Park, Ill.) offers a CCD-based digital acquisition chest system, the most recent incarnation of which is its Imix 2000 model. Designed by Oy Imix Ab, a division of the Medira Group (Tampere, Finland), and manufactured in the United States by AID, the Imix 2000 has been available since mid-1999 and is installed in more than 70 locations worldwide.
Swissray International Inc. (New York, N.Y.) also incorporates CCD-based technology in its digital radiography product line. In company statements Swissray indicates its has multiple U.S. installations in New York, California, North Dakota and Texas, and European installations in Poland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Principal Products
Digitize, mobilize, analyze. With those three little words as its mantra, Wuestec says it derives its living supplying customers with a total imaging solution customized for their particular needs – from digital X-ray (digitizing), to video communications (mobilizing) to PACS software (analyzing). To that end, the company heavily markets its DX2000 and DX2001 digital radiography systems, each of which include an image receptor, workstations, X-ray generator, PACS viewing software, radiographic stand, table, telemedicine expandability and remote diagnosis capability.
Wuestec claims its digital radiography systems offer “the highest resolution in the industry at the most competitive price”: 11.9 million pixels, 65,000 grayscale palette and 4.1 lp/mm spatial frequency as compared to flat-panel competitors’ 6 to 9 million pixels, 16,000 grayscale palette and 3.6 lp/mm spatial frequency. The low-end DX2000 system retails for $195,000; the high-end DX2001, for $220,000. Wuestec says it has the capacity to manufacture 500 units a year at its Mobile location. Current delivery time is eight weeks from time of order.
Designed for general radiological applications, the DX2000 product line promises diagnostic-quality images on a high-resolution monitor within 15 seconds after X-ray exposure, a 3-second refreshment cycle and a 14-inch by 17-inch imaging field for large imaging requirements without detector rotation. It offers Ethernet 10/100 base T and DICOM 3.0 compliant format to PACS and hard-copy output devices.
Wuestec says initial market research regarding its digital X-ray system indicated the company needed to target medium and smaller-sized hospitals, particularly those in rural areas. Since then, the company has branched out, courting customers of all shapes and sizes. Names of customers or numbers of installations were not forthcoming, except to mention that the company’s first installation was in the Middle East.
Other products in the Wuestec portfolio include:
? C-Quest 4R: A microprocessor-controlled mobile image intensifier effective in surgery, traumatology, orthopedics, endoscopy, intensive care and first-aid applications.
? SuperStand 2000: A wall-mounted system, enhanced for increased strength and durability, which allows movement of the X-ray tube vertically and horizontally with magnetic locking. With the integration of a tilting table with built-in DR receptor, the SuperStand 2000 enables a system to function as a digital radiography unit. Wuestec also offers a SuperStand 4000 for general radiographic use and the sturdy, wall-mount SuperStand 100.
? SuperStand 6000 Crane: An integrated spring balanced tubestand, the crane incorporates an S.I.D. digital display among other features.
? Xrt600 tilting table with spot film device: Designed for general diagnostic radiography and fluoroscopy use, the Xrt600 can be purchased in a variety of configurations for small and large hospitals, private practices and clinics. Also available: models Xrt500 and Xrt400.
? Positioning Chair: The chair’s single rail design allows standing views without the need of a platform or removal of the chair. A hand-held remote controls motorized transverse movement and lock release for longitudinal travel.
? Compugen HF 65/80: Designed for conventional radiodiagnostic, remote control or conventional RF tables and for angiographic installations, the Compugen HG 65/80 range of microprocessor-controlled X-ray generators comes equipped with automatic dose rate control for fluoroscopy and angiography, as well as real-time kV adjustment.
? Genesis: A high-frequency generator, Genesis consists of a high-voltage transformer, powerboard unit and keyboard. Its ability to work on limited power levels allows it to be combined with various alternative power sources, such as solar energy, gas generators or even muscle power to charge the battery storage.
? LiteLine 302: A multilayered, square field X-ray collimator. Also available: LiteLine 100.
? MP3 player: A voice recording system with playback capabilities.
Wuestec does not make products for other companies, but it is pursuing contracts with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), particularly in regards to its DX2000 product line. Details on those efforts are not yet available, pending the signing of those agreements.
Strengths
Wuestec believes its strength is in its focus on the knowledge of the X-ray image and in its delivering to customers a complete, digital, high-end, high-tech solution – not just a piece of equipment. As a small, relatively young technology company, Wuestec recognized early on that it needed to choose a direction, commit to it and not get distracted with other imaging modalities, such as MRI or ultrasound. While a company officer is quick to admit that his is not the only company in the business of providing for a customer’s X-ray needs, he just as quickly insists that his is the only company focusing on the X-ray image and all that surrounds that in an effort to custom craft a complete solution for a customer’s situation. Wuestec touts as an advantage its ability to connect any and all of its products into a hospital’s existing communications network.
To further its solutions philosophy through its DX2000 products, Wuestec has entered into several strategic alliances.
An exclusive agreement with Agfa Corp. (Ridgefield, N.J.) brings imagers, or film printers, to the Wuestec product line, for those digital customers who still want to print out to film.
A partnership with Silicon Graphics Inc. (Santa Rosa, Calif.) supplies Wuestec with high-end workstations. Silicon Graphics is best-known for helping produce the eye-popping animation for the “Jurassic Park” and the “Star Wars” movies.
A partnership with Data Ray Corp. (Englewood, Colo.) provides Wuestec with high-resolution monitors for X-ray diagnosis. Wuestec receives monitors from Samsung as well, as part of that company’s continued interest in Wuestec.
For one to two years, Wuestec has cooperated with Planet Corp. (Seoul, Korea) to design and manufacture hand-held products that will enable radiologists and others to take an image off a monitor and carry it with them for further analysis. Wuestec’s MP3 player is the first viable product to come of that alliance.
IGate (Louisville, Ky.) is Wuestec’s partner in the development of a video, data and image communication technology that runs on existing network cabling. The IGate-Wuestec venture involves a patented multifiber modem that splits channels so that images and data can travel across the cable simultaneously.
Wuestec also credits its size and employee demographics with contributing to the company’s success.
As a small, what it calls “nimble” company, Wuestec says one of its strengths is that it can “turn on a dime, within five minutes, with a full company meeting.” Its flexibility allows it to search the market for the best technology available and forge alliances and partnerships as it sees fit, as compared with larger companies that may have to develop new offerings within a product-development cycle that keeps them from reacting quickly to market demands.
Additionally, founder Wuest’s Swiss nationality granted Wuestec immediate access to European networks and figured prominently in Wuestec’s strategic alliance with Samsung. Among the 50 employees, a number have lived and worked in more than 20 countries; others speak several languages, allowing the company to communicate with customers in about 17 languages.
Weaknesses
Managing growth and keeping on top of technology are Wuestec’s two main concerns. How does the company continue to grow responsibly, continue to offer customers leading technology and remain a competitive choice in an ever-expanding marketplace?
Wuestec recently went through an extensive and structured strategic planning initiative, reviewing rapid growth and charting growth predictions that will ensure company viability while maintaining customer satisfaction. As part of that initiative, Wuestec scrutinized production capacity and human resources requirements, determining that it can build 500 digital systems a year and deciding that it should hire employees before it needs them.
In its quest to remain competitive on the technology front, Wuestec regularly must commit time and resources to surveying top researchers to find out their projects and their direction; at the same time, it continually must invest in scouting for new and emerging technologies.
Outlook
Wuestec looks to the future of imaging and sees that it is digital – digital X-rays, telemedicine and teleradiology.
Citing research statistics from a 1999 Business Communications Company report, a Wuestec official notes that revenues in the U.S. telemedicine market are projected to reach $2.7 billion in 2002 and that the number of U.S. sites using telemedicine applications between 1998 and 2002 are predicted to increase at an annual rate of 89 percent.
Those figures and information combine to tell Wuestec that – if a company is in the business of selling digital – the market is ripe for quality products and services. As hospitals realize that the cost of not having PACS outweigh initial dollar outlays to install PACS, most will be shopping for what Wuestec can offer them: a complete X-ray solution, one that digitizes, mobilizes and analyzes X-ray images.
Concentrating on digital does not mean that Wuestec will abandon its traditional and profitable film product line, however. A company officer says he expects that some healthcare facilities somewhere in the world still will use film 10 to 15 years from now. As long as that market exists, Wuestec plans to be a part of it.
