Tenacore

O.C. firm triples space despite economy

June 13th, 2010, 4:55 am

Despite a difficult economy that has shuttered many competitors, Tenacore Holdings Inc. has bought a 37,500-square-foot building in Santa Ana that is almost triple its previous space.

Southern California natives Peter Bonin and Brand Caso started Tenacore in 2000 as a distributor of medical products. But now it both manufactures and repairs medical equipment such as finger probes, Y-sensors and extension cables for other companies’ monitoring systems as well as a line of compatible fetal transducers. Its customers are hospitals and clinics.

It has hundreds of products in its catalog, said Director of Sales Irving Quam, and has 23 new products in development. The goal is to introduce a new product every three months.

The founders initially ran the company out of a small office at Newport Plastics. They kept growing the company until Tenacore took over the entire building and Newport Plastics has a small space. Tenacore eventually bought Newport Plastics, Quam said.

Tenacore now has between 125 and 140 employees.

“We make these products right here while many companies make them in China, Quam said. “We compete on quality as well as short lead times to delivery.

“The company has done well in the recession because the owners are frugal. They pour everything back into the company,” Quam said.

The larger space will allow Tenacore to provide additional benefits for employees and customers, Bonin said. “The new building features classrooms tht will be used for employee as well as customer education and training. We hope that this will enable us to reach out to the biomed community and demonstrate out commitment to improving the profession.”

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Company Showcase
Tenacore Holdings, Inc.
Biomeds: Meet your ally

Some companies take decades to realize their true potential. Although they may experience moments of innovation and steady, albeit slow, growth, it takes them many years to fully come into their own. Not Tenacore Holdings, Inc. In only 10 short years, the Santa Ana, Calif.-based company has experienced unprecedented growth and success that has the entire biomedical industry reeling. What’s Tenacore’s secret? Why has the company succeeded when so many others have failed? Read on to find out.

A Decade of Innovation

When Peter Bonin, III and Brand Caso established Tenacore Holdings, Inc. in 2000, they never imagined just how successful their venture would prove. After all, their company had a rather modest beginning. Set up in only 1,000 square feet of office space, Tenacore entered the market as a service distributor for vital signs monitoring and respiratory products. It didn’t take long for Bonin and Caso to realize the potential of their company, however. “In just a few years, we grew into a full-service repair depot, specializing in repairs of fetal transducers, wall-suction regulators, and Sp02 products,” says Bonin, who serves as Tenacore CEO. And 2005 ushered in further innovation for the company. “That was the year we expanded into our current facility and began manufacturing products,” Bonin says proudly.

Today, Tenacore is a world-renowned, full-service repair, manufacturing, and distribution firm employing more than 140 individuals. It’s also something of an anomaly in the healthcare industry: a company actually expanding during these challenging economic times. “Over the years, we have continued to broaden our line of products and services,” says Bonin. “We currently offer 12 service modalities, as well as a complete line of suction regulators, oxygen blenders, compatible Sp02 products, fetal transducers, and ECG cables. Along with our current line of products, we will be introducing a new product every three to six months.” Another telltale sign of Tenacore’s success? The company currently occupies a 15,000 square-foot facility and has outgrown it. According to Bonin, “We will soon move into our new 37,500-squarefoot facility in order to continue our rapid growth.” Although he admits that planning for this move has required patience and flexibility, he says that it’s well worth it. In fact, much of Tenacore’s inventory has already relocated to the new facility, including computer numerical control equipment, injection-molding machines, calibration equipment, and more than 300 linear feet of technical assembly space.

Tenacore will also be employing green building practices to reduce their environmental footprint. “We have implemented a green initiative for the new building by installing tankless water heaters and solar tubes to complement the recycling program that was already in place,” Bonin says. In other words, Tenacore’s mission to be the crème de la crème of the biomedical industry has carried over into their construction practices. Educating the Indu stry Despite all of the exciting things happening at Tenacore, Bonin acknowledges that his company hasn’t been immune to adversity. “As a rapidly growing company, one of our biggest challenges is reaching out to the biomedical community as a partner, instead of simply as a vendor,” he explains. “It’s our goal to work hand in hand with the biomedical community in order to improve the profession and continue to succeed in this industry.” Unfortunately, Bonin says, he often encounters smaller companies that fail to employ the same risk management procedures that Tenacore practices. “As a result, many of these competitors are able to drastically cut prices by offering an inferior product or service,” he says. However, Bonin refuses to cut corners. “It is our goal to inform our customers of the benefits of working with an ISO 13485:2003, U.S. FDA-registered vendor in order to manage their own liability and ensure patient safety. For example, specific intervals and is traceable to NIST standards, this ensures the accuracy of the devices that we repair.” Tenacore’s preferred conduit? Education. Since Bonin believes that education is the way to overcome this challenge, Tenacore has developed an education center. Open for Tenacore customers, distributors, and even competitors, this new center seeks to elevate the status of the biomedical industry. More specifically, Bonin says, “We recently created an educational fund that will sponsor biomeds in the Tenacore training program, which will take place in the classrooms at our new facility. We hope that this will enable us to reach out to the biomed community and demonstrate our dedication to improving the profession.”

For a company that’s such a strong proponent of education, it’s no surprise that Tenacore employees are also encouraged to further their training. After all, keeping up with technology in the repair depot is a challenge as Tenacore continues to grow. To combat this, “We continuously send our engineers to OEM training programs in order to expand their knowledge and our own service capabilities,” Bonin says. Tenacore has also hired additional engineers to meet the increasing demand for biomedical services. Plus, Bonin says, “We also recently reorganized our sales and customer service teams in order to better support our customers and distributors across the country.” A Bright Future Without a doubt, Tenacore Holdings, Inc. is a true ally of the biomedical profession. In addition to continuously developing new products to make biomeds’ jobs easier, Tenacore has shown its support for the profession in numerous other ways. One way, for instance, is to maintain a presence at biomedical tradeshows. Not only does Tenacore sponsor biomedical associations across the country, it also participates in approximately six to eight regional biomed shows per year. Another way that Tenacore supports the biomedical profession is by offering free technical support. Whatever the modality, Tenacore has an engineer onsite who is available to offer free, direct technical support. After all, Bonin says, “With education as one of our primary goals, we hope that our free technical support and education center will allow for greater interaction between Tenacore and the biomed community.” Moving forward, Tenacore has plans to strengthen its ties to the biomedical community even more. “In the future, we will continue to align ourselves with biomeds across the country to work as partners within the greater community,” Bonin asserts. “We will continue our growth by diversifying our services and product offerings.” Tenacore will also continue to grow as an OEM by manufacturing a wider product line, he reveals. “Furthermore,” Bonin says, “we will continue to serve as a cost-saving solution to hospitals around the world.” To cash-strapped healthcare facilities trying to save a dime, this is likely music to their ears.

For more information regarding Tenacore Holdings, Inc., please visit www.tenacore.com or call 800.297.2241.

Rapidly Growing Orange County Medical Device Manufacturer Moves to a New Location

Santa Ana, California – June 3, 2010 – In an economic climate where many businesses are shutting their doors, Tenacore Holdings, Inc. is moving to a new 37,500 sq. ft. location that is almost three times the size of their previous facility.

Founded in 2000, Tenacore Holdings, Inc. has grown from a medical products distributor to a full-service repair, manufacturing and distribution firm – and one of the top privately held companies in Orange County, California.

The two founders, Peter Bonin and Brand Caso (both Southern California natives), started the business out of one small office in the previous facility. Ten years later, the company had expanded to take over the entire building and its rapid growth left it bursting at the seams in the small Santa Ana building.

Taking advantage of the economic downturn, Bonin and Caso purchased the new 37,500 sq. ft. building in January 2010 and began renovations. The new building includes many upgrades and new features in addition to the much needed space. “We have implemented a green initiative for the new building by installing tankless water heaters, solar panels, solar tubes, and low water plants to complement the recycling program that was already in place,” says Bonin.

The larger space will allow the company to provide additional benefits for employees and customers. Bonin describes one of the new benefits, “The new building features classrooms that will be used for employee as well as customer education and training. We hope that this will enable us to reach out to the biomed community and demonstrate our commitment to improving the profession.” In addition, the new building will include an athletic center to promote employee wellness.

The company officially moved into its new home over Memorial Day weekend and is already enjoying the additional space.

Contact:
Irving Quam
Irving.quam@tenacore.com
1525 E. Edinger Ave.
Santa Ana, CA 92705
Ph#: 800-297-2241

Peter Bonin and Brand Caso founded Tenacore, Santa Ana, Calif, in 2000 as a distributor supplying products and services to hospitals, medical centers, and third-party service providers across the nation. Since then, it has grown into a large manufacturing and service center for vital signs monitoring accessories. 24x7 recently spoke to co-founder and CEO Peter Bonin about products, quality, and what makes Tenacore unique.

24x7: What duties do you typically perform for the company?

Bonin: As CEO, I advise our director of operations and interface with the sales director, engineering staff, and quality assurance team. Working closely with our management team has allowed me to focus on company growth by participating in new OEM projects and expanding our service offering.

24x7: What do you consider as the secret to your company's success?

Bonin: Investing in our quality department and our customer service center has given us a tremendous advantage, which has resulted in customer retention.

In addition, we have brought all manufacturing in-house. Our engineering staff has the ability to design, prototype, and run production under one roof. This enables Tenacore to produce and launch products in a short amount of time.

What makes Tenacore unique is our ability to maneuver quickly to adapt to our customers' needs.

24x7: What types of products does your service center typically work on?

Bonin: Tenacore's repair service component covers several departments within a hospital. Our service center works with wall section regulators, O₂ blenders, fetal transducers, pulse oximeter finger probes, infusion pumps, bedside monitor repair, module repair, telemetry repair, and rigid and flexible endoscopes repair.

Tenacore also offers a line of OEM-compatible products that include fetal transducers, SpO₂ finger sensors, EKG cables, and O₂ blenders. We sell our new product line direct and through distribution.

24x7: How does the company ensure it is performing quality repairs on OEM products?

Bonin: Tenacore's QA department creates or duplicates the OEM policies and procedures for each product. Once the procedure is complete, the engineering manager or department supervisor ensures the procedures are being followed by completing the proper documentation forms for the QA department to audit.

We expect our quality to start on the front line in all departments, including engineering, soldering, production, and on through our shipping department. Our QA department has a separate office within our building and has the authority to make quality-related decisions. The idea is we catch all quality-related issues prior to the product leaving our facility.

24x7: What are some of the products Tenacore plans to introduce in the near future?

Bonin: The newest product will be the O₂ blender; that will be launched December 1, 2008. We will be launching our new wall suction regulator on March 1, 2009.

In addition to our OEM product, we are always manufacturing new parts to support our service center. We offer these new parts to all our customers as they become available.

24x7: Guide us through the process of developing a new product.

Bonin: Why don't we take a look at our new wall suction regulator for an example. Our engineering team gains a large portion of the knowledge from our service center. This is usually our starting point because this view enables us to take a close look at working units that have been in service for many years. We take special note of the portions that hold up or fail in the harsh environment of a hospital. Our mechanical engineers have become specialists at utilizing existing technology, resulting in a superior hybrid product.

In order, our product development starts with product selection or idea, market analysis, engineering development, cost analysis, prototype, tool building, prototype production, clinical research, certification, and product launch.

24x7: What's your calibration and testing process like?

Bonin: We try to emulate the hospital setting. Our service center has over 80 calibrated patient monitors that you would find in hospitals. In addition to our OEM monitors, we use oscilloscopes, Huntron, Fluke, Pronk, BC Biomedical, central stations, SpO₂ simulators, and software programs that help our techs identify problems quickly and effectively.

24x7: How does the company plan to grow in the near future?

Bonin: We will continue to grow by expanding our service center and continuing to develop new OEM product. We will continue to invest in manufacturing equipment and hire qualified personnel that will complement our exceptional staff. We look forward to serving our customers for years to come.

O.C. firm triples space despite economy

June 13th, 2010, 4:55 am

Company Showcase Tenacore Holdings, Inc. Biomeds: Meet your ally

Rapidly Growing Orange County Medical Device Manufacturer Moves to a New Location

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Tenacore

Company Showcase
Tenacore Holdings, Inc.
Biomeds: Meet your ally