Client
GE Healthcare

Design Consultancy
Kinneir Dufort Design
Sean Devane
0117 901 4000
sean.devane@kinneirdufort.com
www.kinneirdufort.com

The Brief
A technetium generator is a specialised piece of hospital equipment that creates radioactive solutions. These are injected into the human body during gamma camera imaging procedures, such as brain, kidney and bone scans for cancerous cells and tumours. The product made by Amersham Health (now GE Healthcare) was, in fact, two separate systems made in two different locations. The brief was to consolidate the products into one, improving ease of use and manufacturing costs.

The Design
The use of radioactive technetium-99m saline solution requires heavy lead or depleted uranium shielding. This is a great cost and safety consideration. Kinneir Dufort conducted research among healthcare practitioners at hospitals to establish exactly what they needed from the machine and the result is the DRYTEC. This device uses the same technological processes as other technetium generators but consolidates and simplifies them. The DRYTEC has clearer labelling, more efficient shielding and a smaller footprint, wrapped in an attractive tubular casing which belies the device’s great weight and solidity of build.

The Results
Sales of the new DRYTEC are running 17 percent above the forecast in a conservative market notoriously resistant to change, despite no additional initiatives taken to promote the new design. As well, the assembly time of a new unit is half that of the old unit. This is just one of several manufacturing efficiencies that has improved the output of the factory by 80 percent. As a result, GE Healthcare has seen its profit margin increase by 24 percent.

Judges’ Comments
‘For somebody to think about this concept is amazing’, said Sara Deeks, Brand Strategy Director, Barclays Bank. ‘Whoever designed this against this brief is clearly a genius’. Raymond Turner, chair of the judges, noted in the sessions that it took a ‘real product design to make it [the DRYTEC] work’.