Rachid Mehdaova is the Senior Director of Business Development for Aftermarket Services at Plexus. Rachid has more than 20 years of experience in aftermarket solutions, consultative sales and operations.

Q: What trends are you seeing in aftermarket support for life sciences companies?

A: Companies are trying to be more competitive by adopting a service-centered strategy. Their brand image is at stake, and successfully implementing that strategy requires either a substantial investment in in-house services or a trusted external partner. 

Most often, partnering with an external expert will have less of a financial impact on the company’s bottom line. We know finding the right aftermarket partner is not only a financial decision – a company’s reputation rests on the partner being able to get products back to the end customers quickly and at the highest quality. There’s also a need to understand the regulatory landscape that’s becoming more complicated.

Plexus can address these concerns in several ways. For example, we offer service plans that guarantee replacement products in a certain timeframe, some within 24 hours. We’re also manufacturing agnostic, so we can service products regardless of who made them. 

Thanks to engineering being in our DNA, we’re more than just product fixers – we can help redesign or upgrade the product to solve problems for the future.

Q: What aftermarket services does Plexus provide?

A: Plexus provides a full-spectrum of support once a product is in the market. While we have extensive technical and regulatory expertise for healthcare and life sciences companies, some of the most popular services fall into four categories: we can repair products at one of our service centers worldwide; we can manage the complaint-handling process for any reported issue; we can manage service parts; and we can perform failure analysis to investigate product design or performance issues as well as offer mitigation and redesign proposals for future product success. 

Q: What do companies need most in a service provider?

Uptime is a must in healthcare and life sciences – a hospital infusion pump, a home dialysis system, or a clinical laboratory diagnostic system can’t be out of service for long. When a product isn’t available because it’s being serviced, customers lose revenue. More importantly, patients risk having potentially life-saving procedures delayed. Plexus helps companies maximize uptime in different ways, like with guaranteed replacement times. We also offer loaner and exchange products while products are being serviced. 

Cost is another top concern for companies. Our services use a predictable cost model that can scale as a company’s operations grow. Our aftermarket service programs are designed with the flexible needs of customers in mind.