Hardware Park, Birmingham’s hub for physical product development, is entering a new era.
It is renewing its focus, aiming to establish the city’s presence in the national medical device creation landscape, with Hardware Park at the center.
Lloyd Cooper, principal at PUSH Product Design, an industrial design firm based in Hardware Park, said part of the story starts with early work PUSH did with the University of Alabama at Birmingham when it custom built a special type of casting table for children with scoliosis to be used at Children’s of Alabama.
From there, PUSH went on to wok on another project for UAB, this time involving a wheelchair that makes it easier for patients to get into the chair and then reclines them into a safe position. These projects led to an awareness of PUSH’s capabilities, which, in turn, led to more projects.
“What we would like to do now,” Cooper said, “is to be able to offer the services to others here in Birmingham, Alabama, who want to create their own devices. The objective is to be able to offer one location, a team that understands how to listen very carefully to the criteria and then move through the entire development process from concept through prototyping through design.”
Cooper said there is a great opportunity for such a partnership with UAB, adding that “with this combination of the heritage of our cities within engineering and manufacturing combined with medical expertise, it just seems like a perfect fit.”
The graduates of new and existing UAB programs can ultimately become employees of companies at Hardware Park and beyond.
Hardware Park has services similar to what Innovation Depot offers, from legal advisory services to accounting services to expertise.
“We hope to build Hardware Park as a center to come and build physical devices as opposed to the software side,” he said. “Just as you can access those services at Innovation Depot if you have a software company, we want you to be able to access those services here at Hardware Park if you have a device company.”
Building exposure, Cooper said, is the challenge. He wants people to know more about projects coming from Hardware Park-based companies such RAMPART ic.
Moving forward, Hardware Park is developing programs such as the MedTech Design Experience to aid in honing its focus on medical device creation.
The two-week MedTech Design Experience aims to shape the future generation of medical device designers and engineers by recruiting eight high-schoolers from a mix of metro area schools who have a deep interest in engineering and are recommended by their school’s faculty.
The experience immersed students in intensive sessions and helped them gain hands-on experience in medical device design and prototyping. Each team culminated the experience by creating a medical device prototype.
Cooper and Mark Conner, executive director at Hardware Park and former director of engineering at Hoover High School, spearheaded the experience.
“Our goal has been to create the introductory experience into design and engineering that we wish we had had when we were in high school,” Cooper said. “While this program has been carefully tailored for a two-week student experience, it builds off the same best practice models we use here at Hardware Park for our medical device clients.”
Mark Conner added, “It’s exciting to be working with students again as they develop their own medical device ideas under the guidance of a team of award-winning designers and engineers. Birmingham is already recognized for exceptional medical care and research, and the expertise and experience of this team uniquely positions Hardware Park to make Birmingham a home for world-class medical devices.”
