Articles
The following is an excerpt from "Having the Vision: START-IT’s 2006 CEO VISIONARIES".
To view the article in its entirely, please visit: http://www.specialtypub.com/article.asp?article_id=3272
Scott Toney
President and CEO
Camstar
A theme among many of the executives named to this years’ list of CEO Visionaries
is focus. Every executive makes important decisions and then lives by them the best
they can, but without a clear focus those decisions may not get executed correctly
or at all.
MES (manufacturing execution systems) has quickly become a strategic application
to help global manufacturers deliver perfect manufacturing orders on time, first
time. Scott Toney, Camstar’s president and CEO, is all about focus for the company’s
MES application. His is a targeted approach, which is working quite well for the
company whose revenues are growing by more than 50% a year.
Camstar’s key vertical target markets are medical device and diagnostics, semiconductor,
and high-tech electronics. Camstar has customers in other industries, but it is
on these three that Toney focuses much of his attention, with the most recent successes
in the medical device vertical.
Where ERP systems are probably the most well known type of business application
that manufacturers use, MES connects the valuable information in manufacturing to
the rest of the enterprise
The semiconductor industry was the among the first to see the benefits of MES because
of its tracking and tracing capabilities and its ability to give detailed feedback
on what is happening while products are being made. This has always been a critical
method to improve production yields and efficiency in an environment where product
costs and production overhead are high. Paper doesn’t offer the real-time control,
nor a feasible method to find trends and correlations when problems arise.
"Semiconductor manufacturers were early adopters because their processes are so
volatile and their technologies so new. They knew the ROI (return on investment)
and the value of dependable processes from the start. Medical device companies are
just now learning the value of MES. They have similar challenges, yet it’s one of
the toughest environments I’ve seen because of the addition of strict regulations.
They are required to have traceability and signatures on everything, and with paper
processes, it’s a huge burden. Our customers have been able to eliminate that paperwork
burden, and dramatically improve quality and efficiency, and also reduce risk."
Though Toney focused Camstar on medical device manufacturers just two years ago,
the company is already deploying its solution in half of the 12 biggest medical
device companies in the world. Key implementations include multiple divisions of
Johnson & Johnson and Tyco Healthcare.
For a company like Camstar, partnering with the customer, technology providers,
and others is extremely important to meet customer expectations, especially when
it comes to quick implementations and increasing production yields, driving up throughput
with fewer errors, and meeting government compliance requirements.
Camstar is rapidly scaling its strategic partner network to meet increasing global
demand. Through partners, Camstar can deliver the reliable, quick response its customer
deserves.
"They want results, and we can help them through our partners who understand our
product and embrace our methodology," says Toney.
Toney's leadership has created a company culture that embraces customer service
as a way of life. The company even has a name for its approach to listening to customers,
called the "Voice of the Customer." This process involves Toney and others meeting
with customers in different verticals to understand their challenges, which is then
incorporated into Camstar’s strategic development process. New software releases
are already a result of these meetings, and another was due in April.
"Our focus now is to raise the bar with more functionality. We have a roadmap for
next three years. It's starting to pay off," he says.
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