General Electric (GE) developed an ultralow-cost electrocardiogram (ECG), an
$800 ECG machine for rural India that is portable, battery-operated,
easy-to-use, and easy-to-repair. Normal GE ECG machine costs about $5,000 and
$20 for a scan and the equipment is highly complex, heavy, bulky, and needs a
skilled technician to operate it, as well as highly technical service support. GE
built the machine using commodity components, realizing huge cost advantages
and produced millions of units that reduced cost further with economies of
scale and for the sake of reducing the power consumption and increase battery
life eliminated monitor and used printers found on public buses and in movie
theaters.
Another innovation from
GE is the baby warmer, known as “Lullaby,” which was designed focusing on the
requirements of maternity homes and hospitals (80 percent of which use baby
warmers). This device which costs $12,000 in United States but the frugally
innovated device will only costs $3,000,
which is a big boon for emerging countries like India, China, Brazil, etc. The
Lullaby is now reportedly sold in 62 countries, including Brazil, Russia,
Egypt, Dubai and Italy.
GE’s drive to
miniaturize technologies in order to make them more mobile couldn’t be better
illustrated than with the breakthrough Vscan technology. Roughly the size of a
smart phone, it houses powerful ultrasound technology that potentially helps
redefine the physical exam and improve patient care by enhancing a doctor’s
ability to quickly and accurately make a diagnosis. For critical care
clinicians, Vscan can offer an immediate look beyond patient vital signs with
the potential to identify critical issues, like fluid around the heart. Vscan high-quality imaging is indicated for abdominal,
urological, cardiac, obstetric and pediatric scanning.
Reportedly, there are
over 30 products in GE’s Indian pipeline that are targeted at “the Indian and
the emerging global markets” and will be launched by GE’s Bangalore Centre
within the next three years. In 2001, General Electric set up a $175 million
facility (the John F. Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, India), which
houses state-of-the-art laboratories and facilities to conduct R&D for GE
businesses worldwide. The center supports 4,200 scientists, researchers and
engineers who frugally innovate in the healthcare, energy, transportation,
aviation, financial and entertainment businesses. At this facility GE conducts
advanced state-of-the-art medical research and innovation, working on
breakthroughs such as molecular imaging and diagnostics, micro ultrasound
machines and next-generation MRI systems.
For businesses to
survive in the emerging markets they need to do adopt the frugal innovation
making the products or redesigning the highly complex and costly products into
affordable, easy to use products to be used easily particularly in rural
markets where there will be problems like power shortages, lack of highly trained
healthcare professionals and lack of infrastructure like roads, power,
buildings etc. GE Healthcare has been successfully adopted frugal innovation
and India based R&D center is at the heart of its strategy.
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