Laguna Beach resident Steve Ewing’s self-described desire to “make life better for people” has gotten him noticed in the medical device industry.
Ewing, president of Ewing Design Group in Laguna Beach, recently was a finalist in an awards ceremony put on by Denmark’s Index, a nonprofit that promotes design. Ewing was nominated for his invention of the Mat tourniquet, which is made by La Verne-based Bio Cybernetics International.
The tourniquet is a life-saving medical device that’s designed for use by military, law enforcement and emergency services workers. The Defense Department commissioned the device.
Ewing founded his company in 1994.
The Business Journal’s Vita Reed recently talked to Ewing about designing medical devices.
How did you get into medical device design?
I have always loved creating products that make life better for people. My favorites were doing the types of products that had to perform a function really well. Medical devices fall in this category. Every project gives us an opportunity to improve a procedure, to make something faster, simpler, easier or even just more fun.
I started out my career designing everything from phacoemulsifiers (used in cataract surgery), dental lasers and laparoscopic devices to regular consumer products.
Walk me through the process of doing this, from the time of generation through manufacturing?
Phase one is discovery, where we explore new opportunities for our clients. We collect information, perform in-depth competitive analysis, study market trends and establish the project’s objectives and criteria. This then becomes our road map for the project.
Phase two: define. We start developing fresh ideas.
The next phase, design, sees us proving out the concepts and examining feasibility. This phase is highly iterative, where we make lots of prototypes that get put to the test.
We describe it as “make it, break it, improve it, repeat.”
The final phase, deliver, is where we finalize the manufacturability of the different parts and then make sure that what comes off the assembly lines is as intended.
What type of education do you need to be a medical device designer?
The education I got at Long Beach State did an excellent job of preparing me for my career in design. (Professors) Herb Tyrnauer and Mike Kammermeyer were design education giants. They taught that design was not merely art and aesthetics, but a scientific, problem-solving process. They instilled in us the ability to give a product emotion, to make people desire it, even lust after it.
At the same time, I learned that even the tiniest details deserve to be well thought out and made more elegant. Only by sweating the details do you make the whole better. Using that methodology, you can improve any product.
Since then, I have supplemented my education with instruction from UCI and other institutions in new materials, medical device regulatory requirements and marketing.
How do you win work?
Our growth has almost entirely been from referrals. We get very good word of mouth from our clients and our supporting vendors.
In the last couple of years, I have been quite active within (the Orange County Technology Action Network). Octane is an organization that gets biomedical and technology companies started, funded and accelerated by connecting people, capital and technology.
You also design things other than medical devices.
From motocross body armor to ride-on toys for Lego, we haven’t met a product yet that we couldn’t improve, make more appealing or easier to produce. It’s in our blood.
In fact, we are just starting development on a device for performing emergency tracheotomies. It’s the first medical device that has joint funding from all four military branches.
Have you competed in the Index event before? How tough is it to place in the finals?
Very tough. It was a tremendous honor and we hope to repeat that experience. It was nice to go from national to international recognition as a top design firm.
We were nominated by the Industrial Designers Society of America after they awarded a gold Idea2006 for the Mat tourniquet. In nominating us, the (society) chose our design as the best medical device created in the last two years, which is the frequency Index runs.
Have you thought about joining a device maker?
I’ve received offers in the past from clients who want me to remake or start up their internal product development operations. But the right situation hasn’t presented itself. Right now I’m having a lot of fun growing Ewing Design Group, but you never know what the future holds.
