Founded in 2001, Fall River’s Millstone Medical has been growing ever since. Nine years after its founding, it expanded to a new, 40,000-square-foot space in the city, complete with a clean room.
By 2015 it needed more space and had expanded again, serving medical-device manufacturers with services such as clean-room packaging, finished-goods distribution and medical-device-specific warehousing solutions.
Another expansion is now underway, one that will add about 4,500 square feet of mechanical inspection space, 31,000 feet of warehouse space and 6,000 square feet of kitting space. General Manager Tom Williams spoke with PBN about the expansion.
PBN: What is the status of construction for the Fall River building?
WILLIAMS: The new Fall River building will be weather-tight before Thanksgiving and will be operational in mid-May 2020.
PBN: You said in a press release announcing the start of construction the new facility would help in attracting and retaining employees. How so?
WILLIAMS: We look forward to the new building creating more of a campus feel for all Millstone employees. The building will feature more-modern, open-concept features with a medium-term plan to include a fitness center. Our goal is to enhance our facilities to improve the lives and workdays of our employees across the board.
PBN: About 100 jobs are expected to be added after the new building is up. What will most of those roles be?
WILLIAMS: The opportunities created by this growth will vary across job functions, from entry to senior level. The growth and demand are driven by the consistent increase in volume and program growth of our medical-device manufacturer partners.
PBN: In what area has the company seen the most growth lately and why?
WILLIAMS: Clean-room packaging has been the predominate driver of our growth for the past few years due to shifts in the delivery model of orthopedic devices to hospitals, as well as the European Medical Device Regulation push to increase medical-device safety in that market.
PBN: What do you think is the biggest myth about the medical-device-maker services companies such as Millstone?
WILLIAMS: The concept of outsourcing often carries a negative connotation – with an assumption that you don’t get the same high level of quality that you would if you did the work in-house. This would be the greatest myth about companies [such as] Millstone. We not only have to abide to our own standards but to those of 50-plus device companies as well, including some of the top 10 orthopedic companies in the world.
Susan Shalhoub is a PBN contributing writer.
