Leading Medical Device Field Service for Better Patient Care

Ryan Condon (host): Geraint, welcome to the show. It’s an absolute pleasure to have you with us today. Yes, I just wanted to jump straight into it. So for listeners who don’t know the environment, what does a field service engineering manager at BB Braun do on a day-to-day basis and what is your team responsible for?

Geraint Evans: Pleased to be here, thank you.

Yeah, very similar to a lot of other service positions, if you like. We’re responsible for making devices safe, compliant, and available when they’re needed. ⁓ So in its fundamental sense, leading the field of service engineers who cover everything from plant maintenance, installations, and ad hoc repairs. And especially for us,

So one of the key differences is we work on some quite serious and active medical devices, such as dialysis machines and infusion devices. So making sure that that equipment is in good working order. But the big picture really is kind of at the end of it, which is ensuring patients don’t miss or receive poor treatment because of a product that’s not functioning correctly.

So that’s the key thing. So it’s all the things that would be very familiar to field service, but there’s a difference at that end of it. There’s a person at the end of that rather than a process or an industry, that kind of thing. So that’s the key bit, I would say, if I was going to summarize it.

Ryan: And your predominant customer there is the NHS, yes.

Geraint Evans: Yes, yeah, yeah, you know, we have, because the way our healthcare system works in the UK, essentially, we’re fortunate to have the NHS. While we do do some work with some private medical healthcare professionals as well, but that’s the bulk is in the NHS.

Ryan: You mentioned something to me, the objective is to sort of take the headache away from the NHS, which is quite a talking point at the minute. So what does that look like in practical service terms?

Geraint Evans: From a service point of view, it’s just giving them one less thing to worry about. Any healthcare professional will have a million and one things going through their head. You know, the decision making that they’ve got to do day in, day out. One of the things that we want to do as a, not just in the service, but be brought on as a business anyway, know, in providing this is if we can take that at least one decision away from them so they know that when they switch that piece of equipment on, it’s just going to work. They might not care how, what, when, what, they have that confidence and it’s going to work. you know, and they, you know, they know it’s compliant, you know, they know it’s within its within dates and it’s going to do what it’s meant to do because it’s very heavily regulated as well. So if we can just remove even just that one worry from them that that piece of kit is going to switch on and do what they want it to do.

That’s helping to take that headache away from them. Yeah. So just bring it, bring it to us. We’ll look after it. You do what you do well. We’ll do what we do well.

Ryan: I suppose it’s one of those things where you really don’t want them just to think about it. It just works, you know? They only think about it once it has doesn’t work.

Geraint Evans: It’s like any really good, I mean, and I’m generalizing a lot here, but any really good technology, kind of, you don’t worry about how it works. know, phone’s a great example. There’s all sorts of magic going off in the background. It’s just easy to use and you know it works. So that’s a sign of really good, you know. And when you’re exposed to some of the pressures, know, everybody’s aware of the NHS, but when you sort of really get to experience some of the real pressures.

A, you’re really thankful that it’s there and B, anything you can do to by way of supporting that. It’s like I said to my wife, you never know when you’re going to need it yourself. So just imagine that you’re the next person on that piece of equipment. So yeah, really important. So anything we can do to improve that service is going to be a good thing.

Ryan: We’ll come back to that a bit later. You’ve managed service in two very different worlds. So it’s industrial work, need a man and obviously medical devices at B Braun. What skills and best practices carried over well and what didn’t was, was there a moment early on at B Braun when you, when you thought, okay, this is a different level of responsibility.

Geraint Evans: That’s a really good question.

Firstly, if you really think about it, there are some fundamentals that aren’t so different. So even though one’s industrial and one is in healthcare. But they’re both related to the welfare of people actually. and you don’t know about this unless you’re in the industry. So LED systems are not there for the process. They are there for people because it’s about protecting the breathing area.

Controlling that breathing space of that person. ⁓ what it is, is preventing them going to hospital in the first place. So where they are now deals with them once they’re in hospital, but LEV systems. you know, so as I was thinking about that, you know, there are some commonalities, but generally in terms of that industrial part, people still will link LEV to production and not people.

To go back to the question, you know, what carries over, for example, like any field service, know, leadership and good process discipline will always carry over well. So scheduling, resource planning, et cetera, et cetera, that’s going to carry on, always going to carry well. And it’s my own three Rs, as I call it, right person, right training in the right place. So get that almost then the actual, the industry almost doesn’t matter in that fundamental sense of putting guys out there to do.

What I didn’t realize was the sort of probably, you know, while the LVV world is quite heavily controlled from a regulatory point of view, there’s a whole section in the HSE website and to do with HSG 258, I think was the guidance. it’s been a while since I was in there, but you know, so there was a lot in terms of compliance, when you in the healthcare industry, it’s a lot more regulated as you’d expect it expected today.

The outcome of an LEV system, know, production facilities will work even if you don’t have an LEV and you say well I’ll hire it, well it’s protecting the people, doesn’t protect the process, it protects people. But if you switched it off that process will still run but their HSE wouldn’t be too keen on you, still operating without that. So it’s more linked to production, you know, we could have a whole separate discussion on whether it should be or not but it’s linked to production.

Down production is lost money. When it comes into healthcare, then the potential outcome of not working is a direct effect on somebody’s life. So if that person can’t get their treatment, and especially in the dialysis world, this is super important. if they, every decision we make as a business and as a field service has the potential to have a direct impact on a patient.

And when I realised that, in the early days in, when I realised that you’re going right down to an individual person and really, really their quality of life really depends on that piece of equipment. And that’s when I realised, yeah, this is a whole other world. So the fundamentals of field service, you can transfer that anywhere. When you come into this particular industry, it’s a whole different ball game in that sense, but massively fascinating as well.

Ryan: Almost like a mind shift, you know, like the accountability of this equipment and these fixes?

Geraint Evans: Absolutely, and that mind shift is not in just in yourself, it’s in your team, it’s in your engineers, it’s in your planning and scheduling team. There’s different drivers to it in any other. Because before Nedim and I was at Coupa Lighting, both great companies to work for, absolutely fantastic. But that outcome is very, very different. And it’s a different type of, you’re a different sort of person when you’re dealing in that world to more industrial sort of aspects. So again, in very general terms, I would say.

Ryan: I’m really interested in understanding how you measure and track operations as well. So while we’re on this, know, patient outcomes, ⁓ it depends on equipment being available and compliant. That’s a huge thing as well. How does this change the way your team approaches tasks like diagnostics and repairs?

Geraint Evans: Well, speed matters, obviously. It changes everything, to be fair. So matters. So in previous world, it’s like, you know, numbers, numbers, numbers. But the accuracy and the compliance matter much more in this world. So, you know, my engineers know that a rush fix is just not acceptable because of the potential to compromise safety.

It’s just not acceptable. So, you we’re always training for a first time fix, you know, and empowering engineers with the right tools and with the right sort of data, et cetera, to make those decisions confidently. What we don’t do is we just can’t cook on it. It’s just, it’s not, there’ll be many field service engineer familiar with it. It’s a joke process flow. I know if seen it.

Basically the fixes either gaffer tape or WD-40. It will come to one of them, I’m sure you’ve seen it and there’ll be people that will be familiar with it. It’s just, I know that’s a kind of joking way of looking at it, but it’s got to be done right. It just has to be done right. So that is way more important than just getting it done. Yes, uptime with that machine needs to go back into use as soon as possible.

But we still only do that when we’re 100 % sure that that machine is right and good to go. it’s again, and that’s what drives the engineers. It’s the passion behind that, making sure it’s right as opposed to just that churn of in and out, fix and out. And they are passionate about it.

Ryan: And you touched on a KPI there, first time fixed rate. I’m curious, obviously that as well, but what KPI’s matter most when you’re focusing on uptime and compliance?

Geraint Evans: Uptime is the key one. so uptime percentage and that first time fix is probably the most important. you know, and I’ll give an example. One of our sites where we’ve got, I think it’s roughly 2,700 devices at this one particular trust.

And what we do through preventative maintenance through the scheduling or through us taking that headache away from the client. We drive to 95 % availability or above of that fleet of 2,700 devices. That makes a huge difference because, again, you relate it to what those, it’s not just a gray box in a corner. When you relate that to how many treatments 2,700 devices are going to deliver over time, making sure at least 95 % of them is available, then that’s a real key thing and a real key driver for NHS sites as an example.

Ryan: One thing that really sticks out from your experience is obviously you’ve had that hands-on engineering background as well as an electrical support engineer. I’m curious which metrics do engineers respect the most when they’re out in the field and they’re working to and which do they sort of resent the most? ⁓

Geraint Evans: Again, I think that first time fix rate is close to them ⁓ and their response time because that really reflects the effort that they put in. it’s a reflection. Those are metrics that reflects the work they do. ⁓ just to just so I can try to make myself clear here, you know, if you look at a blanket metric like how many jobs have you done today, you know, this

It ignores the complexity because we’re dealing with some quite complicated bits. It could be a 30 minute fix on an all day fix. we, know, and blanket metrics don’t, they ignore the complexity and they don’t factor in the variables. There are no variables that might crop up. Now in field service, that could be just getting there, for example. So.

The if an engineer has has the way for an engineer that is not to ask you could say to him don’t know how many devices you fixed today. It’s like what impact have you had today? And I think that’s a key ⁓ thing for me. that’s, it in that way changes kind of how the engineer thinks about what he’s done. yeah, ⁓ I’m not, don’t get me wrong, know, the data is all powerful, but you know, the passion that drives engineers in this particular industry, it’s more to do with the impact and the outcome rather than sitting green on a dashboard sometimes. Well, there’s an important element to that anyway, of course there is.

Ryan: And we had a chat a few days ago and you said something that really stuck with me. So, you know, it’s easy for organizations to forget the actual person behind these KPIs. What’s the most common way you see this happening in field service?

Geraint Evans: Like I said, dashboards are powerful and really useful. But if performance is just purely reduced to numbers, then engineers are just going to feel like another machine, another cog in that big complex machine of a large company like ours. So if we’re just pushing, if we just need more jobs out of you, out of a day, for example, or when they…

If you’re not considering that travel time or the complexity of that job or the unknowns of when you’re going to get there, you’re going to you’re going to have it’s going to start and even things like, you know, work life balance, you know, so we can’t just focus on on numbers, numbers, numbers. We have to think about the person as well and having that fairness in ⁓ in scheduling, et cetera, because what you’re going to end up with burnout ⁓ and by

But if you reach that point, what’s already happened is too late and then everything becomes reactive. you know, you’ve got flight risks of people and people’s general health and wellbeing is going to suffer. you know, it’s not where we want to be in any part of our life, let alone not just work. it’s… I’m a bit of a numbers geek sometimes, but…

You’ve got to think about the person. It’s an engineer at the end of the day, not just a part of a machine that does something that spits out an outcome. It’s a real person out there having a direct impact on patient outcomes. And it’s brilliant.

Ryan: I suppose it’s quite an uncomfortable truth in field service that that human element is forgotten and engineers are sort of, you know, encouraged to work till they burn out to make sure these KPIs are here, these SLAs are met as well. Now, you are a Mountain Health ambassador. So I really want to get a good insight here. What are the earlier signs you would look for that someone might be struggling in the field? Especially when they’re powering on, they want to get the job done.

Geraint Evans: That’s actually a bit tougher to answer than you might think because…

What is any person’s norm? There’s no such thing as a norm. There’s only that person’s norm. And what is norm for me might be different for you, for example. And it’s only by getting to know these people really well that you then can spot when they’re not in their norm, if that makes sense. So as a manager, I’m not a manager of 25 engineers or a leader of 25. I’m 25 different managers to 25 individuals because they’ve all got their, you know, every personality type is slightly different. They’ve all got their own drivers, their own preferred way of communicating, of working, et cetera. As a leader, of course, you need the consistency of your fundamental message and the fairness across the team. ⁓ But being able to being able to spot when somebody is starting to feel that pressure, that takes time and you’re only going to get that from really sort of understanding.

And knowing your engineers. I’ve got two fantastic team leaders as well that are really close to the guys. So it can be slightly one step removed sometimes, but I still make sure I have a script meeting with each engineer a couple of times a year just to sort of touch base. And it doesn’t even have to talk about work. It could talk about anything. But I think as a general, with my well-being hat on, suppose, just that withdrawal from their norm, if you like.

They’re less engaging at a meeting or, you know, the numbers are still working. They’re still churning out the work, but they’re not coming forward with ideas and not engaging in meetings. You know, but it just takes time to build that up, though. But withdrawal, yeah. So a change from their norm, I would say, is the first sign. But what is everybody’s norm?

Ryan: Yeah, well that shows the leadership there, know, understand what the norm is for each year of engineers and going with that human element, okay, they’re not feeling normal today instead of like maybe a numbers approach that you meant.

Geraint Evans: Yeah, yeah, exactly. yeah, it’s, it’s an area that I find, you know, I feel quite passionate about. So, and I’m, you know, I’m still fairly early in that journey myself, in that sense, but I do, I do find it fascinating.

Ryan: What’s the most common drivers of burnout that you see in field service engineers?

Geraint Evans: I’d say, I’d say in field service, it’s a lack of autonomy. We’re all familiar with, know, nobody likes being micromanaged, et cetera, but, you know, really good engineers like to feel autonomous. So they’re still very much connected with the business, but they are trusted and trust is the basis of everything, as we know. So, you know, as a manager, you know, it’s in our control to schedule, you know, and fairness in scheduling, you know, making sure that the engineers heard, they have an input into that ⁓ solution. ⁓ Sometimes just even acknowledging that there’s some pressure, there’s an outlier, and there’s a bit of hands to net, just listening to them and accept, listen. We know we’re all up against it on this particular project or aspect. Just talking it through can make all the difference. So.

I think as long as, you know, to sort of bring it back, if an engineer feels trusted, then they feel empowered and then they feel engaged. And if they have that, if they have a sense of autonomy, then we’re going to get some good engineers out there. That’s what we always drive for, or what I always drive for.

Ryan: One thing I’m really curious about is the different types of tools and technologies that particularly managers and engineers use to help deliver that performance. There’s some really good chat, so there’s been a mix of software, spreadsheets, sensors. We had Sandy Laird on last week and she would talk about AI robots for solar farm maintenance. It just really fascinates me some of the conversations we can have. You managed PPM servicing at Niedermann on LEV systems, which you’ve touched on.

When a PPM program is working well, what do you notice most in the field? Is it fewer call-outs, fewer repeat visits, better uptime? What’s the clearest signal that, yes, this is working?

Geraint Evans: You’ve half answered the question for me in a way, and that’s not unique to Nedman or to Beaver-Own or any of that. People love using car analogies. A well-maintained piece of is reliable. It’s going to be a cost saver in the long run. that’s what you want the customer to see. It’s not the cost of that PM because it invariably can be the first thing that gets reduced as I’ve seen, not so much in the healthcare but certainly in other industries. So if they see the value of it, you know, that in the long term this is going to save them money because fuel back breakdowns, know, compliance, regulatory compliance, you so if they’re going to get audited by BSI or whatever their own regulatory body is that looks after that, then…

It’s taking that headache away from them. Your kit is working, it’s compliant. And there is a value to what we are providing. It’s not a cost, it’s a value. ⁓ And long term, it’s, you know, and then you can start to talk about corporate responsibility, their image, you know, that they have as a business, as a brand, and it helps with all that. it’s not just, well, they’re two years up, it needs a service now.

That’s the, you’ve to come away from that. What value are we bringing? So that’s the key thing I would say.

Ryan: And in that role, you mentioned work was controlled through an integrated ERP and field service tools. I’m really curious to know what did that good integration actually improve in terms of the services.

Geraint Evans: It’s great. I’m old enough to remember doing all this with spreadsheets. And don’t get me wrong, I love a spreadsheet. You know, I’ve even got a Pimp address that says, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s such a powerful program ⁓ as well. But you sometimes need to be a bit better than that, if you’re liking something that can be a little more sort of tailored to what you need. So, but what I seen when we moved to a good system, know, waste, get rid of waste to start with. So, you know, you eliminate duplications, for example, you eliminate errors. You know, the engineer has.

Real-time access to job details. It’s not a copy of a copy of a copy of a spreadsheet that’s on his laptop. So he’s got real time, know, it’s all based in a cloud now. So that real-time access to the job details, to the parts, you know, as leaders and managers using that, can see the workload, you know, we can have a live snapshot at any given moment in time, look at compliance status.

I like using the term with field service. We’re always moving the chess pieces around the chessboard. But we’re doing it constructively with these systems. We’re ⁓ chaos into clarity, if you like. And that’s what it helps you do. So a really good system, a well implemented system, helps you right across the board. From the first customer call right up to that, everything’s fine.

Ryan: If you had to recommend one investment for Field Service teams as we go into 2026, what would it be and what problem would it solve?

Geraint Evans: I think the biggest one I can think of, we’re seeing it, and some companies have been doing this for a while now. Others haven’t got there yet or they’re on the start of it, but it has to be that predictive analytics. know, IOT sense now, we need to, I think it’s moving away from, right, this device has done 20,000 hours, all this device has now been in the field for 12 months.

So we have to go in and we have to replace X, Y and Z just because time or hours. Having that predictive, being able to see a motor that’s going to fail before it fails is super powerful. And again, it’s going to save money in the long term. How proactive is this? The phone customer said, right, next week we’re coming in.

Because we’ve noticed the fluctuation in the data. We’ve seen something in the data that that motor is probably going to fail in the next couple of weeks. So we’d like to come in and swap that out for you. Priya, that’s just brilliant. that’s what there are companies doing now. ⁓ When I was at Neidemann, it kind of just coming in, coming in then because I know I said that the LED systems are terrible people, they needed it. They weren’t allowed to produce without it.

So when you can say, and then they can plan, they can plan pulling that machine out of use. They can plan, well, we’ll do, we’ve got a shutdown coming up in two weeks anyway, so let’s do it then. ⁓ And again, it has to be saving money long-term, because you’re not replacing parts for the sake of replacing parts, because it’s on an interval schedule on a sheet. ⁓ It’s actually been very proactive about it. And ⁓ I think that’s, well, I don’t think that’s where we’re heading and that’s where we need to go.

And I think that’s regardless of the industry. Absolutely regardless. It doesn’t matter. And most sustainable as well, of course. That’s another big driver for everybody and especially NHS. So we’re going to replace that couple of hundred pound motor just because my watch said it probably is time to it. So it feeds into sustainability as well. So it’s hugely exciting.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s so powerful for… Yeah. And it’s powerful when you think of the plan is aspect of it as well you touched on. you making sure you’ve got that spare part available for that shutdown in two weeks. You’ve got the right engineer booked in to come and fit it, you know.

Geraint Evans: Absolutely, So we have a first time fix rate then improves. All this stuff kind of links in together and it’s really exciting.

Ryan: So we like to save these last questions just for sharing your insight and advice for the listeners. So what’s one habit you think separates a good field engineer from a great field engineer, regardless of industry?

Geraint Evans: I’d say given my time and the different industries I’ve done and having been a field engineer myself, I think you’ve just got to have a passion for what you do. Now I see that a lot more, of course, in the healthcare world because there is a more direct link with that end outcome. For production line, it’s down for a while.

Fix it and they’re up and running again. Engineers with the passion.

Good engineers have got that, I don’t know how use the word syndrome, a good engineer loves that knight in shining armor aspect. I’m here. I’m going to fix this problem for you. I’m going to save the day today. Good engineers believe in that and they’re passionate about that. if I see passion, everything else can be trained. The technical skills, et cetera, et cetera, that’s fine. We can train that. But if I see passion in engineering, they did.

99 % of the time they stand out because they buy in to what they’re doing, they buy in to, they believe the why. It’s not just the what, it’s the why as well. So if we have a passionate engineer, you’ve got a good engineer and I’d say hold on to that person.

And if an engineer listening today wants to move into a more leadership role, what should they start practicing now while they’re still in this role?

Start now. Just start now. Leadership isn’t a promotion. It’s a skill set. ⁓ You know, it’s not authority, it’s influence. That’s the difference when you go into leadership. But you know, if there’s an engineer out there that wants, he needs to start now. know, it’s communication. So I have a technical background, but I’m not the best person. I can’t fix a dialysis machine. I have engineers that know how to do it. That’s what they’re trained for. But in a leadership role, you need at least a bit of an overarching, a fundamental understanding.

So, you know, they need to learn, learn to explain complex stuff in a simple, in a simple way that people he’s communicating with can understand. Yeah. And listen actively, of course, you know, that’s just tying into my wellbeing side as well, know, active, active listening, you know, taking ownership of, of, of tasks, you know, ⁓ volunteer to, to, to coordinate a small project, for example. So, you know, take ownership beyond your own tasks, you know, have an interest in what’s going on and what’s out there and where, where you can be an influence in, in, that task because of the experience that you built up ⁓ up to now.

Thirdly, the big one is, is the, you’re always gonna have that rolling conveyor belt, but you know, there’s going to be new engineers coming in as the older guys. and again, I think this is a big one for me and again, mentor others. If there’s a young engineer coming up and you can mentor them, train them, that, know, inspire them, know, show that passion, you know, why it’s important then.

Then to me that’s almost a leadership superpower, mentoring others and bringing them through and making them feel part of the business and explaining the why and not just the what and the how. Emotional intelligence is another one I think if you’re going to be a leader in any field let alone field service then notice how people act under stress, respond to it calmly, think about what it is that’s triggering it because usually what you see at the face isn’t the root cause.

So having some emotional intelligence or, know, there’s a million fantastic books you can read on that and webinars and things you can do and, fascinating subjects. So, and then I think, and then just think big picture, you know, instead of just, instead of just focusing on this one piece of kit, which is important, you know, you’ve got to do that’s your job right now.

But what’s the big picture? What’s happening in that trust? Or that claims as a whole, yeah, you know, where do I actually fit in the whole service delivery, you know, right from, you know, our commercial guys going in and discussing the latest product, right, right to the whole life. So understand that big picture and not just focus on it. And then finally, you’ve got to start, if you want to get in this, you need to start practice decision making, because that’s ultimately, you know, I don’t manage the day to day in that sense because with good systems and good people, if it works, what I have to concentrate on is either managing the exceptions is when something doesn’t go right or what we already started thinking about what we’re doing next year and the year after and the year after where’s that growth going to improve.

So in terms of somebody wanting to go into this role, practice decision making, balancing risk, cost, impact, you know. ⁓ And if you can start building those habits today as those ones and do it now, like I said, right at the top of the question, just start now. ⁓ And don’t, it’s not promotion. It’s ⁓ a skill set that you’ll never perfect.

And I’d love to meet somebody that has. I certainly haven’t yet, but you know, every day is a school day, isn’t it? So, yeah, that’s what I would say to it.

Ryan: Really insightful, really insightful. Geraint thank you so much for joining us today, sharing your experiences. There’s been some really, really valuable takeaways there. Just running field service in high stakes environments, balancing that uptime with the compliance and particularly how you lead engineers as people and not just KPIs. So yeah, once again, Geraint thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, thank you for listening as well and we’ll see you on the next episode.

Geraint Evans: Thanks very much, Ryan. Thanks for having me. Take care.