May 9, 2025 • 50 mins
Join host Aaron Moncur as he sits down with Dr. Stuart Grant, a seasoned med tech innovator with over 25 years of experience at industry giants like Johnson & Johnson and DePuy. Dr. Grant shares his journey from design engineering to founding his own consultancy, offering invaluable insights into medical device development, regulatory challenges, and the future of medical technology.
Main Topics:
- Career progression in medical device engineering
- Challenges of starting a medical tech consultancy
- Regulatory differences across global markets
- Innovation strategies in medical technology
- Advice for young engineers
- Future trends in surgical robotics and AI
About the guest: Dr. Stuart Grant is a seasoned expert in the MedTech industry with over 20 years of experience at major companies like Johnson & Johnson and DePuy Synthes. In 2023, he founded Archetype MedTech, a consultancy that helps medical device companies achieve market approval through innovation strategy, technical evaluations, and team training. He holds advanced innovation and project management degrees and is a Chartered Engineer with several medical device patents. In addition to his technical work, Stuart lectures on innovation history and is a visual artist. His international experience and multidisciplinary expertise make him a key advisor for MedTech startups and scale-ups.
Links:
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
Exactly How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stuart Grant (00:00):
We take the real world and try and abstract it to
a test, and we test it and say,Okay, if this relates to the
real world in this sort ofverifiable way. But sometimes,
you know, the human body and thebiomechanics are so complicated
that the abstraction sometimesdoesn't work.
Aaron Moncur (00:31):
hello and welcome to the being an engineer podcast
today we are joined by Dr StuartGrant, a seasoned med tech
innovator with over 25 years ofexperience at industry giants
like Johnson and Johnson andDepew as the founder of
archetype med tech, Stuart nowleads a consultancy dedicated to
(00:52):
building startups and scale upsthrough the complex journey of
bringing medical devices tomarket with a PhD in technology
and innovation management and atrack record of navigating
regulatory landscapes across theUK, US and China. Stuart brings
a wealth of knowledge and aunique perspective to the table.
(01:13):
Stuart, thank you so much forjoining us today on the podcast.
Unknown (01:17):
Hey, I'm in nice to speak to you today. So
Aaron Moncur (01:20):
what was it that made you originally decide to
get into engineering andmanufacturing fields? So
Stuart Grant (01:29):
at school, at high school, I was fairly good at
maths and physics, as mostengineers have to be, but I also
loved art and design, so I wasalways crafting and drawing and
painting. So putting all those,I was trying to think, putting
all those sort of disciplinestogether, I came up with
industrial design at the time,or product design here in the
UK. So I went and did my math,my bachelor's in product design.
(01:54):
After I graduated, I was, didn'treally get a product design job.
I got a design engineering job.
So as we know, cat jockeysworking at the time on pro
engineer or Unigraphics,modeling various medical
devices, primarily hips, kneesand shoulders and all the all
the intricate instrumentation.
(02:16):
So as my career developed, Icame moved from design
engineering into a projectengineer and being a project
manager, and just starteddeveloping my engineer, my real
engineering skills from there,as I was on the job that I
applied to the Institute ofmechanical engineers here, and
got Chuck became a charteredengineer here in the UK, so I
(02:37):
was basically becoming a proper,qualified, recognized engineer.
So I didn't go direct. I didn'tdo either a bachelor's or
master's in engineering. I sortof went through the experience
level from doing engineering forthe last 20 years to become an
engineer,
Aaron Moncur (02:55):
which, in my opinion, is the right way to do
it. I mean, on the job trainingis where you really learn about
what it's like being anengineer, right? The education,
you learn some things,certainly, you get a foundation,
but you don't really learn howto be an engineer until you
start doing the work. And I'vealways been of the opinion that
(03:18):
the piece of paper is nice tohave, but, you know, show me
what you can do. That's whatreally matters. Yeah, you know,
Stuart Grant (03:23):
when I was starting my career with our
lucky enough in the facilities,I work at that a prototype shop,
so I was able to do the designwork, go and talk to the guys in
the prototype shop, get thethings made, get the feedback on
the design, and start learning alittle bit about design, those
guys down there, obviously,probably no guys later in their
(03:44):
career have a wealth ofknowledge to how to actually
manufacture these things you'recoming up with. So that was a
huge help. And nowadays,sometimes the protest hype shop
is a bit further away from thedesign engineering office, but
having it next door when I was akid was really formative.
Aaron Moncur (04:04):
You know, I feel like our paths were actually
quite similar. I did a degreeformally in engineering, but I
was always really interested indesign. I never formally did a
degree in industrial design orproduct design, but that was
always kind of what I was moreinterested in. And started off
working for a medical devicecompany, or company engineering
(04:27):
company that was engineeringservices, and our focus was
medical devices. We had aprototype shop right right there
in the building, and I was outon the mill or the lathe, you
know, making prototypes andassembling things and testing
things. So I, I feel an affinityalready towards you and your
your journey. So you work at afew pretty big places, Johnson
(04:50):
to Johnson and Depew. And priorto starting your company,
archetype med tech, you, I thinkyou were like part of the
executive leader. Shep atJohnson, and Johnson, is that
right? Probably
Stuart Grant (05:03):
not. The executive leadership at Johnson, that's
quite high up. I was the, mylast role. I was leading the MDR
program for the Pew joints, sothe Recon business. So that was
quite a significant role at thetime. But I wasn't, obviously
the J executives level.
Aaron Moncur (05:23):
I must have missed, misread that somewhere.
My point was that you had asignificant role at Johnson, and
Johnson, I'm sure things were,were great. That's a big
company. I imagine they takecare of their employees. And you
decided to jump ship and start,start archetype, med, tech.
What? What was the impetus fordoing that?
Stuart Grant (05:44):
So throughout my life, my dad, first of all, my
dad's in the military. So Imoved around a lot. As a kid,
though I stayed in the samecorporation for 23 years. I
actually moved every two orthree years within that
corporation. Wow. So I startedmy career here in the UK, in
Leeds, I think at 28 I moved toWarsaw Indiana. Spent seven
(06:10):
years in Warsaw Indiana, whichwas absolutely fantastic.
Towards the end of that, I waslike, What's my next job? Where
am I going to go next? Am Igoing to leave J and J go and
find something else. And thenanother role cropped up in China
in setting up the R and Dfacility in China, which doesn't
happen very often, thatcorporation like J and J says,
(06:32):
Okay, we're going to set up abig R D. So I was like, I'm
going to apply for that job, andI'm going to hopefully get it.
And I did. So another five yearsI was in China, working in the
facility there in Suzhou,teaching young engineers how to
develop medical devices. So theengineers in China at the time,
back in 2010 were coming fromsort of adjacent industries,
(06:55):
Black and Decker or DeWalt,ground force pumps, all those
sort of mechanical engineeringjobs, and they were looking into
medical engineering. They weretransferring those skills to
medical engineering, and we hadto teach them the medical
engineering part of engineeringand develop the products at the
same time. Sounds reallyexciting. Five years now, after
(07:16):
China, I moved back here to theUK in 2016 in that point, I was
thinking, what am I going to donext with my career? My career?
So I'm back in the UK, so I tooktwo options. And the MDR project
was just starting, and this wasa significant, as you know,
significant upheaval for theindustry, and I was given the
(07:36):
leadership role for the jointside. So big project, lots of
people. So I started that forfive years, but I also decided
probably I need to keep myoptions open once MDR finishes,
it's big project, but it doeshave an end date, and I've got
to go and find another job. So Istarted my PhD, my doctorate in
(07:59):
medical engineering, not medicalengineering. So medical
innovation. Probably know whatmy doctorate is in, right?
Medical Innovation. So I didthat in parallel to do an MDR
with the view that probably timeMDR finishes, I'll probably move
on from j and j if there's noother opportunities that crop
(08:20):
up. But I had to keep my optionsopen, and unfortunately, nothing
did crop up in j and j so Idecided, okay, here's the chance
mid 40s, let's go and start myconsultancy in medical
innovation and productdevelopment and see how it goes,
and help startups and scale upsdevelop their devices from all
the knowledge I have, and gettheir product to market approval
(08:42):
as quickly as possible, is my mygoal now, and
Aaron Moncur (08:46):
so tell us a little bit about your company.
How long has the companyexisted? Are you the sole
employee, or do you have a team?
Or do you work with contractors?
Obviously, the focus is ismedical that's a large industry.
Is there a niche focus withinthat? Yeah,
Stuart Grant (09:06):
so, so my experience is in orthopedics and
surgical devices, so implantsand instruments primarily. So
that's why I started the scope.
There's two people in thecompany, a business leader who
does all the business stuff andmyself, who does all the
principal consultancy stuff orthe engineering. We both lead
the business, looking forclients, what, what the business
(09:28):
set up to do is I lead theinnovations for any startup, and
I analyze what they're trying toachieve, what the proof of
concept is and what they'retrying to get to market proof as
quite quickly as possible. So Ianalyze that innovation process.
So do the pieces that have to gotogether and put a plan, and
that plan basically tells thecompany I'm working with is,
(09:53):
okay, this is going to take you18 months to five years,
depending on the complexity. Anda million to $5 million to
develop this first device, andthey hopefully will come back
with the cash and say, Okay,let's do it. Stuart, and at that
point, I go in contact my widenetwork of consultants who
(10:15):
usually working on their own,and then start contracting them
onto the project and buildingthat project team for that
company, project team to developthat device. And so the design
engineer might be on the projectfor a year of that five years,
(10:35):
medical writing might be at thestart and at the end, you know,
in making sure that we're notjust employing a bunch of people
burning a load of cash, wheresometimes they've got a load of
downtime, the plan is within thenetworks, syndicate of subject
matter experts. We're using themat the right time for the right
job, and trying to be asefficient as possible, as quick
(10:58):
as possible to get that proof ofconcept market approval and get
it into the market as quickly aspossible so these companies
don't run out of cash halfwaythrough their development.
Aaron Moncur (11:11):
Yeah, that sounds like a really smart, efficient
way to do it, as you havestarted archetyp archetype in
and built yourself as aconsultant. What are a few of
the biggest challenges you'verun into?
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Stuart Grant (12:13):
I think so I I've been closeted by a corporation
my entire career, so I've beenfocusing on product development,
a bit of budgeting, but as acompany, then you've got to
start thinking about the taxes,the accounting, the legal
aspects that you sort of knowhappen in the background of a
corporation, but you don'treally get involved unless you
(12:34):
have to sign a piece of paper.
Then you get involved a bitmore. But this is the part that
I'm really starting tounderstand now is the business
side of running a business, notjust being the principal
consultant or the projectleader. That's one thing. The
next thing is quite basic, isfinding the clients, right? So
there's, there's a problem herein the search. Problem is the
(12:58):
clients. Obviously, there'snever startups. They've got a
very small footprint. It mightbe a surgeon or salesperson with
an idea who's done a few designdesigns and got a prototype.
They've got a very smallfootprint in the market and
archetype. We've also got a verysmall footprint. We don't deal
with many clients at a time,three to five, that's maximum we
(13:19):
deal with. So matching thosetwo, the needs together, is
always a problem. I think a lotof smaller businesses face this
problem, and that's why I dopodcasts. I do a lot of writing
for the industry magazines. I'mon Facebook, not Facebook
LinkedIn, to make sure that I'mout there, and you start
(13:42):
startups can find me. The otherthing is really critical that
I've just sort of discovered inthe last year is the cash, the
money these businesses need, isreally critical, and the
industry set up around supplyingthat money. So the angels, VCs
and eventually the privateequity, if you get that far down
(14:05):
the line, is really critical. Sowhat I decided to do was go on
an executive education courseand financing an entrepreneurial
business at London BusinessSchool. Just completed it last
week to really understand thatecosystem. So I can help my
clients with that ecosystem aswell when they come to me,
because I can tell them how todo the development work and the
(14:27):
innovation work, but if they'reshort on cash, they can't really
execute anyway, so we need tohelp them also find the cash.
Aaron Moncur (14:37):
What are some of the things that you've learned
at this training that if I was anew client coming to you saying,
Stuart, I've got this idea for amedical device. How would you
advise me when it comes tomaking sure I have enough cash
or where to go to find that?
Yeah,
Stuart Grant (14:57):
so the the. The tutor there, guy called
Professor John Mullins. His bigpoint is, customer funded
businesses are the best. Trynever to go and lend borrow
money from a VC or an angel,because they'll take significant
(15:17):
equity and the shareholderagreement will be very
difficult, especially for afirst time founder, to navigate.
So his his thesis is trying toget the customer to fund the
business. And there's lots ofmodels to do that, which we did
talk about. The other key thingis valuing your business. How
much is it really worth in youngcompanies, because they don't
(15:39):
have much sales, or no sales atall, or not even a product.
Valuing that business andfiguring out how much equity you
should give away to a VC for themillions that you need to
develop their medical device isreally key. And this course is
in London Business School reallyhelped me understand all the
gears that the finance peopleuse to value value businesses.
(16:04):
So they'll value, obviously, inthe low end, and you'll do your
calculation to value at the highend. And the negotiation between
those two figures is what thefinal valuation is in the amount
of equity you'll you'll get toand the cash you'll get for that
equity outside of
Aaron Moncur (16:21):
the funding which, which obviously is critical,
right? Like you mentioned, whatare some of the other challenges
or roadblocks that you havecommonly seen these medical
device startups encounter? So
Stuart Grant (16:34):
one of the really important ones is considering
the indications, the clinicalindications, that the device is
going to be used for. And asengineers and designers, we get
really carried away that ourproduct we've come up with can
solve the world's issues, and itit might do that. I'm not
(16:54):
questioning that, but you can'tgo and get market approval on
solving the world's issues. Theregulatory people who have just
say, No thanks. It's going totake you loads of clinical
studies to prove all that you'regoing to solve these world
issues, and it's going to takeway too long. So what startups
need to think about is whatthey're going to go with first,
(17:16):
what indication they go withfirst, and then maybe a very
small, narrow clinicalindication in a list of loads of
Contra indications to startwith. And this is, this is
called the beachhead strategy.
So you get your beachheadmilitary analogy. Once you've
got their beachhead, you canstart building on that landing
zone, and then get more and moreindications as you move forward,
(17:39):
but to get that first part inthe market, just go for one very
narrow indication is really key.
Aaron Moncur (17:48):
And just to clarify, when you say
indication, it's basically whatthe device is intended to do,
right the problem or procedureit's intended to perform? Yeah,
exactly. Sorry.
Stuart Grant (17:58):
So in medical engineering, medical
development, we've got clinicalindication, which will be
statement that says exactly whatthat product is going to treat,
the disease state that's goingto treat, and then you've got a
longer sort of paragraph. It'sthe the intended use, how it's
going to be used. So theindication is really key, and
(18:20):
that's what drives the clinicalevaluation and the market
approval. That one smallsentence on your product, it's
one of the most important.
You've
Aaron Moncur (18:32):
worked in the med tech areas in the UK, the US and
China. How do regulatoryenvironments differ between the
countries, or are they prettysimilar? So
Stuart Grant (18:45):
MDD and FDA, QSR, the MDD, the original one, were
fairly similar. If you builtyour design control process
around MDD and MDR, you could goto both markets quite easily
with the introduction of MDR in2019 that changed everything.
(19:05):
The clinical requirements on MDRare so much more significant
than what the FDA are lookingfor. It is MDR is probably most
stringent in the world now toget through, and it is a major
difference from FDA. And we knowin coming next February, the FDA
are going to realign their QSRto ISO, 13485, which is going to
(19:31):
be QMs, our quality managementsystem regulation instead, the
FDA is calling it, but it'sstill not going to be anywhere
near the MDR regulations. Soactually, EU and the US turning
to the UK. So when Brexithappened, the UK took all the EU
(19:52):
rules and put them into the UKlaw. Within MDR was one of
those, and the thought was backin. Whenever it was. Now
everyone forgets 2017, 18, someLana. It's been so long that
these laws will be rewritten tohow the UK wanted to happen
because of all the COVID and allthe other political things that
(20:13):
happened in the UK here, it justhasn't happened. So the UK
medical device law and the MDRis basically the same at the
moment, and there's no realplans that I've heard of to
change anything so and and thenthe China. It's been such a
while since I've been in China,it's been nearly nine years.
(20:38):
I've not really kept up with theregulations in China, because it
changed so often, so I'm notsure what's going on there. So I
can't really comment very easilyon
Aaron Moncur (20:45):
that one, a total tangent question, when you moved
from the UK to the US, what weresome of the cultural surprises
or the culture shocks that youexperienced? Then do you if you
recall?
Stuart Grant (20:59):
Yeah, I do. And I'll put this in context, right?
So I moved from a city, Leeds inthe UK, to Warsaw, Indiana. So
it's the Midwest population,15,000 people. And what? How old
was I asked? Because, like, 2829something like that. I was a bit
(21:19):
stupid, but young and stupid,and didn't really get the
cultural aspects of what where Iwas going. And I mean, I made
quite a few sort of mistakesupset a few people, and
definitely did in those times,especially first six months
until I got a good friend who'sAmerican, and they started
(21:39):
telling me what sort of aspectsof the especially the Midwest,
and one of the small ones was,we don't do this in the UK. But
if someone, if you ask somebodythrough email to do something
right, can you send me thisdocument and they send it to
you, the assumption is you haveto send a thank you back, and I
(22:01):
did and I did the US, yeah,okay, and the US, and I didn't.
Because I was like, Okay,thanks. You go, I say a hint in
my hand, and
Aaron Moncur (22:12):
then the other party feels offended because
hey, didn't even say thank you.
Who is this guy?
Stuart Grant (22:16):
What a jerk. Yeah?
I was like, Oh, ouch. So thatinteresting, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (22:21):
that's super interesting, huh? That's just
not a thing. In UK, you get thething you requested and that's
it. No one expects any anyexchange beyond that.
Stuart Grant (22:30):
Not really same.
In Switzerland, Germany, theNordics don't really expect it.
If they're going out of theirway and you're asking for a huge
favor, maybe, yeah, you'll saythank you. But if it's just a
sort of daily job type of thing,
Aaron Moncur (22:43):
yeah, it seems more efficient. That's quicker,
Stuart Grant (22:46):
yeah? So that was what I can just think of right
now. That's probably, that's
Aaron Moncur (22:50):
a great example.
Yeah, that's a great example.
Well, let me take a short breakhere and share with everyone
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(23:10):
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are speaking with Stuart Grant.
So Stuart thinking back overthe myriad of different projects
(23:35):
that you've worked on, not justas a consultant for yourself,
but But working at variouscompanies over the years, is
there one that where you canshare an R and D project that
you work on, where there wasthere was a problem, there was
some challenge? Of course, everyproject has challenges, but is
(23:56):
there one in particular thatstands out where there was a
challenge that you and your teamneeded to overcome. What was the
challenge and how did youovercome it? Yeah, so
Stuart Grant (24:07):
I can't really talk in specifics here, but I
can talk in generalities aboutchallenges I've faced, and when
it, when initially comes from aproduct you've you've designed
and engineered, it's gone intothe market and something's gone
wrong. You didn't expect. It's atough one, right? It's like,
what did we do wrong? Why? Induring a product development
(24:29):
that goes on years and years,you make so many decisions, so
many design decisions of everylittle aspect. And when you're
thinking about an instrumentset, which this is an example of
where you've got 150 instrumentssitting in a tray, instrument
tray, all the different designs,and all assemble different and
(24:52):
some little thing goes wrong.
You're like, wow. Why? How didwe miss this? What did we do
wrong? And we just look back onthe paperwork and think. Yeah,
well, because we just think itwas a minor design, we didn't,
we didn't think we need to do asmuch testing as we thought. We
did. The risk assessment we diddidn't show that we didn't need
to do the testing on thatparticular function, but to say
(25:13):
that what we do, we obviously doa risk assessment to understand
what needs to be tested, what'sgoing to fail and what's going
to pass. But all our testing isabstractions from the real
world, right? We take our testsand we abstract it. We take the
real world and try and abstractit to a test, and we test it and
(25:35):
say, Okay, if this relates tothe real world in this sort of
verifiable way. But sometimes,you know, the human body and the
biomechanics are so complicatedthat the abstraction sometimes
doesn't work in the real worldthrows up challenges all the
time, like, oh, wow, didn't,didn't realize that happens in
(25:55):
engineering, in special medicalengineering. So you have to go
back and read, redesign yourtest, redesign the test method
for the next time you design it,hopefully you'll catch it. But
as we know, engineering design,most things are unique. That's
why I'm engineering it. They'renew to the world. So every test
can never capture every problemthat's and you only have a great
(26:19):
night time, which is the issue?
Aaron Moncur (26:23):
Yeah, you have lectured on the history of
innovation, which seems like afascinating topic. That's a
class I wouldn't mind sitting inon. How does your understanding
of the past inform your approachto current? You know challenges
in your consultancy and thecompanies that you work with,
Stuart Grant (26:44):
yeah, pretty much the way people have designed
stuff now thinking about thegreat engineers and designers of
the past. So first one isIsambard Kingdom Brunel, who
might know the US equivalent isRoebling you designed the
Brooklyn Bridge, the wires guy,ours isn't by Kingdom Brunel,
(27:08):
but you've got people likeJosiah Wedgwood, who developed
the first potteries and reallyunderstood the chemistry of
clays and how to make thedifferent Colors. So he really
did a lot of experimentation andrelating that to now, the way we
do things hasn't really changed.
The tools and the frameworks andthe processes we apply agile or
(27:30):
CAD have changed in eventualtechnology, fundamental thinking
as a human change. Ai changingfundamentally, a lot of things
at the moment, we'll have towait and see. But create human
creativity stays the same, andit all comes down to
understanding the world. Andwhen I say that, and this is why
(27:54):
I study history of innovation,is to be creative, one of the
fundamental things human has tohave is a huge bank of
knowledge. So as an engineer,you have to sort of cram as much
knowledge in there as you can,because creativity comes from
combination of two disparatethings joining together and
(28:15):
going, Oh, wow, if I did this.
This solves the problem. Sohaving that knowledge base to
pull from is really important.
And unfortunately, it's justhard graft, reading, watching
lots of things on YouTube,observing one of the things I
love to do, and it's a bit sad,I guess, is I used to in in the
(28:38):
US that you have lows, go aroundlows and look all the mechanisms
and designs and see how othershave solved them, or when seers
existed, going to the Craftsmansection of Sears, that was
always an exciting thing to takeout for me.
Aaron Moncur (28:57):
I know exactly what you mean. I am constantly
looking at different productsand devices and trying to
understand how they weredesigned and how the mechanisms
work and things like that. Mywife is always rolling her eyes
at me, or, you know, thinkingI'm silly for the but this is
what we do, right as engineers,we find it fascinating how other
people have designed something,what looking forward to the
(29:23):
actually, I want to go back fora second you mentioned how it's
difficult to gather, toaccumulate all this knowledge
that is required for innovationto occur right within a human
brain. Unfortunately, it's notlike the matrix where we can
just upload a file of the, youknow, the past 100 years of
(29:47):
design and innovation. Does,does that? Does that infer, then
that? Or maybe that's not theright way to ask this. How have
Have you seen younger NG. Thatdon't have that bank of
knowledge. Are there any protips or best practices that you
have observed or that yourecommend for younger engineers
(30:10):
to to climb that hill morequickly? Or is it, is it just a
grind and takes you know, yearsand years and years of observing
and learning and studying. So
Stuart Grant (30:23):
what I because I like the product development
process side, a couple of soyoung engineers. I usually give
them two books just kick themoff. Is one of them is called,
just called product new productdevelopment by App Engine
Ulrich, which just teaches themwhat the whole process is. And
the other one is bio design,that teaches them the the bio,
(30:46):
the biomedical engineering sideof innovation, so it helps them
get in key and it is just, youknow, looking at the trade
magazines every month or goingto as many conferences as you
can and see if you can justbuild that knowledge. But it is
just, I don't know if there's athere's a shortcut of just
(31:10):
reading and attending andobserving everything that's
going on around you tounderstand the problem. It is
just as quickly you canaccumulate that knowledge, but
you also have to be able torecall it as well. And that's
where the creativity part comesin as well, to be able to recall
that knowledge. I
Aaron Moncur (31:29):
remember working with a brand new engineer years
ago, and every couple of weeksit seemed like he'd come back
and say, Hey, what? What can Ido to really accelerate this
process and get to like a seniorlevel engineer, you know, much,
much faster. And I never feltlike I had a great answer for
(31:49):
him back then, but I thinktoday, looking back, the way I'd
answer it is you just have tospend more time if you want to
climb that ladder faster, if youwant to accumulate that
experience and knowledge faster,spend more time doing your job
or not even doing your job,necessarily, but spend more time
becoming an engineer, right?
Whether it's at work or on yourown time for personal projects,
(32:12):
just do things related toengineering more often. It just
comes down to the number of repsthat you can get in, and what
time frame can you get thosereps in? Right? Spend a couple
of hours after work right onyour own, reading things and
trying things and buildingthings and So, long story short,
I agree with you. I think itjust it comes down to spending
(32:37):
more time, and if you want tocut it off at eight hours a day
after work is over, great,that's fine, right? No harm in
that, but you're not going togrow as an engineer as fast as
someone else is putting in extrahours beyond the minimum. I
think I would also say thathaving mentors is really, really
important. I think that is onekey that unlocks. I don't know
(33:00):
about acceleration, but it's notgoing to slow you down anyway.
Not having those mentors to turnto, I think, can be an
impediment to growing as anengineer.
Stuart Grant (33:15):
That's a great point. I just add to that. So
I'm a mentor for some collegekids doing engineering, but I'm
also also be, also have mentors,so both ways, so people teaching
me how to be a better leader andconsultant, and then I translate
(33:36):
what I've learned back down thelad. And I think we all should
try and do that all the way upto to the end of, you know, our
careers or and past. A couplecouple of my mentors are, were
in the 70s, and they were like,Well, why didn't you go and try
that? Stewart? I'm like, Okay,I'll go and try that. Was a good
idea. Didn't take a fab it'ssome basics. Just the now, an
(34:00):
engineer coming out of collegedoesn't know how, doesn't quite
write a CV very well, or a coverletter, or needs, needs to do a
dummy interview, and you canhelp them do that. Those sort of
things are so important. So thebasics, if you remember back
when you were younger, thinking,shit, I need a job, well, I'm
gonna go and find a job. Ifsomebody was there just to say,
(34:21):
my, you know, my dad was in themilitary. He had no real
experience of getting auniversity degree and going
getting a profession. He was hejoined the military at 16 years
old. He was there for 26 years.
So, you know, he but that's whyyou need mentors sometimes, is
the people to fill in thosegaps, and they've always helped
me through my career.
Aaron Moncur (34:43):
I'm going to go back to something you said
earlier during thisconversation. You mentioned, I
think it was when you were at Jand J and you were you're
finishing up on a big projectfor them and thinking about
what's next. What am I going todo after this? Nothing really
popped up at j and j, so youdecided to go. Off on your own.
You said something to the effectof, if I don't find something
(35:05):
here, I'm going to have to golook for another job. I think a
lot of engineers that would be aterrifying prospect. I have to
go look for another job. I don'twant to go look for another job.
I'm happy, I'm safe, I'mcomfortable here. Yet it seemed
like you had this overwhelmingconfidence that it's not that
big a deal. I'm just going to gofind something else where. Where
(35:27):
did that confidence come? Do youthink
Stuart Grant (35:30):
confidence? I'm not sure I thought I was
thinking I talked to my wife atthe time. You know, it was three
or four years ago, if we don'tdo it now in my mid 40s, I will
stay in a corporation till I'm65 right for the next 20 years.
So what do I want to do inlooking at the leaders before me
(35:54):
in their where their careerswent after, like 50s? I was
like, do I want to do that? Idon't want to go into details,
you know, I do. I want to bethat person. I was like, let's
go and try this. I've got, I'vegot a bit of savings behind me
to do it for a couple of yearsto see how it goes. If not, I
(36:17):
can always probably go and getanother corporate medical
engineering leadership rolesomewhere they in medical
medical engineers, such a smallfield, I even go back into
corporate or go into more of aconsult contracting role in
medical engineering, doingprojects, six bunch of projects,
or one year projects at a timeas a contractor, which works as
(36:39):
well. So there was many ops. Iknew there was many options, if
just this doesn't work for me topursue after this anyway, so it
was like, it's a risk, but therisk is medium. Let's say
Aaron Moncur (36:54):
that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you had enough
money saved up. So if it didn'twork out, you had a year or two
to fund yourself, and thenthey're always going to be
opportunities for a person withyour skill set. And
Stuart Grant (37:06):
that's why you've got to keep educating yourself
and learning through yourcareer, right? Because you've
got to have that skill set isstill applicable today. Yeah,
yep.
Aaron Moncur (37:16):
What are some of the trends that you're looking
forward to in med tech, medicaldevice engineering, what? What
do you think is going to be thenext big thing, 345, years from
now?
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Stuart Grant (38:16):
Yeah, so obviously, the big things now is
AI and robotics. I saw a statlast I think it was 150 robotics
companies, surgical robotics,that companies started last year
in all different aspects of thebody, so high tissue and soft
tissue, so they could obviouslygo through a level of
consolidation over the next 12months, 24 months, and find out
(38:41):
who wins. AI is going to getmore and more into particularly
imaging. Is doing a lot ofimaging of CT and MRI scans to
find various tumors. But that'sgoing to go more into surgical
imaging, those surgicalstructures, using AI to help
doing that, which is probablygoing to be really important. So
(39:03):
that's going to be like aplatform technology. I think so
companies will build a imagingplatform technology that then
will be put into a surgicalrobot. But might also be a
platform technology. When I sayplatform, the iPhone is a
platform that's used with apps,right? So then an end, company
(39:23):
will then create a indicationspecific robot based on all
those different platforms thatother companies have developed,
which will be exciting. At themoment, it's very what's the
word? It's very top down. Socompany develops the robot, the
software, everything that goesinto that capital piece that
(39:45):
goes into the or, I think it'dbe more modular as we move
forward. Oh,
Aaron Moncur (39:50):
that's very interesting, huh? Yeah, right
now, I don't pretend to knowthis landscape as well as others
out there who are more. Expertsin this field. But as far as
surgical robotics, it seems tome like Intuitive Surgical is
way ahead of everyone else. Andin recent years, some of the
(40:11):
other strategics, like strikerand Medtronic and J and J have
been developing their ownsurgical robots. Do you think
that? I mean, does anyone get acatch intuitive, you mentioned
150 robotics companies startedup last year. Is that? Is that a
race not worth racing? Or do youthink that there are some some
(40:35):
companies that are going tocatch up to them?
Stuart Grant (40:38):
I guess they'll have to develop something really
specific, the intuitive onaddressing at the moment. So,
yeah, think about the da Vinci.
Da Vinci was created 30 yearsago. It said to version five or
six at the moment. I can'tremember which one. So that's
they've developed a robot everyfive years or so, and increase
(40:59):
those indications for thebeachhead thing. The first
version only did something verybasic, but as that five versions
have come along, they'veincreased the capabilities of
that thing over 25 years. It's along time, right? Yeah. So yeah,
got CMR here in the UK, sort oftrying to compete with them.
Intuitive. But, yeah, I think onthe heart tissue side, there
(41:23):
will probably be two or threerobots. There may be on J and J
or striker or Zb. There might besomebody else that all these
companies, these implantcompanies, actually use to do
implant their products. At themoment, it's all bespoke. It's
all virtually verticallyintegrated designs. Maybe that
(41:46):
might change the other thing,VR, you know, ar, VR, XR, hollow
lanes is being discontinued. Sohas apple vision been
discontinued? At the moment,we've only got the meta,
whatever device now, and thehive and a few other Magic Leap
(42:09):
I'm not sure that there's muchmore legs in VR at the moment. I
think people have got a bittired of it, maybe like 3d
screens that we had 10 yearsago. It's just not doing what is
said it's going to do. So maybethe current incarnation of those
devices might sort of fade away,and in five or 10 years, a
(42:31):
totally new type of VR systemwill come along.
Aaron Moncur (42:37):
Yeah, I could see that. I remember, I don't
remember who the companies were,but I remember tablets were a
thing before Apple came out withtheir iPad, but they never
really caught on, and they itwasn't a market that was
growing, and it kind of seemedlike they just went away, and
then Apple came out with theiPad, and all of a sudden, oh,
(42:57):
I've got to have an iPad. I'vegot to have a tablet. And now
they're ubiquitous. So I wonder,you know how that will repeat
itself for XR we shall see.
Yeah, I'm
Stuart Grant (43:12):
not sure if this anecdotal, but the use of iPads
is decreasing a little bit atthe moment as well, from a
professional perspective, mostlygaming on your iPad now or
watching movies, it's not as aprofessional device. I think
they hoped it to be, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (43:29):
yeah, yeah. I just use my laptop. Well, if I was a
young engineer interested ingetting into surgical robotics,
and I was asking you for advice.
What kind of advice would yougive me?
Stuart Grant (43:47):
I don't know what advice surgical robotics. It's
not really my area of realexpertise. There's, I guess, as
a young engineer, you've got alot of time to see the robotics
industry develop. So go and finda local surgical robotics
company and join them, knowing,though they might not be the
(44:10):
winners in the race, but you'lllearn a lot. And that's the
thing about when companies fail,the companies fail, but the
people don't. The people go onto do other things, other great
stuff. So go and find a localrobotics company. They'll employ
you, pay you, hopefully pay youas well, and learn something and
(44:30):
then just discover the marketthat way.
Aaron Moncur (44:35):
That's wonderful.
Doing is better than learningabout doing well. Stuart, this
has been wonderful. Thank you somuch for sharing your precious
time and wisdom and insightswith us. We've hit on a lot of
things. Is there anything elsethat we should talk about? Any
other questions we shouldexplore that we haven't talked
(44:55):
about yet? I
Stuart Grant (44:58):
think one of the one of the questions you. You
usually ask is about the speedof speed of engineering, and how
you get faster than that. And Ijust would like to say that
moving my whole business is nowis moved to the cloud. Right
now. I don't have the incumbentsof a corporate IT system that
has to walk under I just madesure I went out and got the SAS
(45:21):
products that really helped mybusiness moving. And I know
before in December, you talkedto John Hirsch, on on design.
After that, I went made sure I'dgot a got a license for on
design, not on design, onshape,sorry, on design or something
else on shape, because that is agreat tool in encouraging some
(45:43):
of the CAD people I work withwho are solid works fanatics to
try on shape, because it worksso much easier in this in this
environment where we're allworking from home in different
offices and all sorts over theplace. So
Aaron Moncur (45:58):
yeah, I think it's the future. Yeah, I think
onshape, they've done such agreat job. And, you know,
SolidWorks is very much stillthe incumbent, and they're going
to be hard to dethrone, justbecause they're everywhere. But
I think it's going to happen.
And I we don't use onshape atthe office, so this is not a
paid plug for onshape oranything like that. But we use
(46:20):
it at our we have a littlevolunteer program called CAD
Club, where we teach kids how touse CAD, and we use, we use on
shape there, because it's somuch easier to get into. You
know, you can run it on. Thesekids just have crummy public
school issued laptops, right?
They're not work stations by anymeans, and it works great.
(46:43):
Onshape works great. There'snothing to install. They can
collaborate online on the samedesign at the same time. It's
just like a, you know, workingon a Word document, two people
working on the same worddocument in different places at
the same time, same thing. Soreally an incredible platform.
And I think five to 10 yearsfrom now, I don't know,
(47:04):
SolidWorks,
Stuart Grant (47:06):
John is an amazing guy. He's a legend as well. He
Aaron Moncur (47:09):
is. He is, yeah, yep, a legend. I mean, it's
incredible, right? The same guystarted SolidWorks, which just
has defined CAD in ourgeneration for the industry. And
now he's invented on shape, andthat, I think, is going to, my
opinion, just my opinion, goingto dethrone SolidWorks over the
(47:30):
next five to 10 years. So he'sliterally brought, probably, I
don't know, 60, 70% of the CADto the industry over this 3040,
year period, amazing. Yeah, I
Stuart Grant (47:45):
think my last comment about, you know,
learning is, yeah, I'm dyslexic.
I hate reading. It's but I haveto, and I have to force myself
to read a book, leads to one amonth. I tried to do more than
one a month, but one a month ismy target, and I can remember
the first book I read. And Ididn't read a proper book until
(48:06):
I was 23 cover to cover, becauseI was trying to, always, as
engineers or designers, alwaystrying to avoid reading. But I
forced I read this first book.
It was called longitude by davaSobel, and it got me into
reading. It was a science book,and that's where it took me down
reading about science andinnovation and engineering and
(48:28):
just pursuing that whole idea.
But as as engineers, we hatereading. So one of the things
you got to do, unfortunately, isread a lot to get that knowledge
base of what's going on outthere
Aaron Moncur (48:41):
any on that subject, any great book
recommendations that you canshare, specifically some that
might be interesting to the, youknow, the engineering audience
here, science fiction orsomething like that.
Stuart Grant (48:55):
I'm just looking over to my bookshelf because I
was a so one of the really greatbooks is called the Idea
Factory. It's about Bell Labsfrom the 1940s to the probably
the 1980s with Claude, Shannonitch, Shannon, the guys who
invented the transistor inthere, Shannon Shockley, and
(49:18):
can't remember the third guy whowon the Nobel Prize, but it was
all about how Bell Labs inJersey was developed all the
engineers and scientists there.
It's really, really good book,just looking at the author, John
gerdner,
Aaron Moncur (49:32):
terrific. All right, I haven't read that one
that sounds fascinating. Well,Stuart, thank you so much again
for being with us today. Reallyappreciate it. This is a
fascinating conversation, and Ithink a lot of a lot of people
are really going to benefit fromand appreciate all of this. So
thank you again. So much.
Stuart Grant (49:49):
Hi. You're welcome, Aaron. It's great chat
today.
Aaron Moncur (49:54):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you like whatyou heard today, please. Us
share the episode to learn howyour team can leverage our
team's expertise developingadvanced manufacturing
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complemented with product designand r&d services. Visit us at
(50:14):
Team pipeline.us. To join avibrant community of engineers
online. Visit the wave. Dotengineer, thank you for
listening. You.
We take the real world and try and abstract it to
a test, and we test it and say,Okay, if this relates to the
real world in this sort ofverifiable way. But sometimes,
you know, the human body and thebiomechanics are so complicated
that the abstraction sometimesdoesn't work.
Aaron Moncur (00:31):
hello and welcome to the being an engineer podcast
today we are joined by Dr StuartGrant, a seasoned med tech
innovator with over 25 years ofexperience at industry giants
like Johnson and Johnson andDepew as the founder of
archetype med tech, Stuart nowleads a consultancy dedicated to
(00:52):
building startups and scale upsthrough the complex journey of
bringing medical devices tomarket with a PhD in technology
and innovation management and atrack record of navigating
regulatory landscapes across theUK, US and China. Stuart brings
a wealth of knowledge and aunique perspective to the table.
(01:13):
Stuart, thank you so much forjoining us today on the podcast.
Unknown (01:17):
Hey, I'm in nice to speak to you today. So
Aaron Moncur (01:20):
what was it that made you originally decide to
get into engineering andmanufacturing fields? So
Stuart Grant (01:29):
at school, at high school, I was fairly good at
maths and physics, as mostengineers have to be, but I also
loved art and design, so I wasalways crafting and drawing and
painting. So putting all those,I was trying to think, putting
all those sort of disciplinestogether, I came up with
industrial design at the time,or product design here in the
UK. So I went and did my math,my bachelor's in product design.
(01:54):
After I graduated, I was, didn'treally get a product design job.
I got a design engineering job.
So as we know, cat jockeysworking at the time on pro
engineer or Unigraphics,modeling various medical
devices, primarily hips, kneesand shoulders and all the all
the intricate instrumentation.
(02:16):
So as my career developed, Icame moved from design
engineering into a projectengineer and being a project
manager, and just starteddeveloping my engineer, my real
engineering skills from there,as I was on the job that I
applied to the Institute ofmechanical engineers here, and
got Chuck became a charteredengineer here in the UK, so I
(02:37):
was basically becoming a proper,qualified, recognized engineer.
So I didn't go direct. I didn'tdo either a bachelor's or
master's in engineering. I sortof went through the experience
level from doing engineering forthe last 20 years to become an
engineer,
Aaron Moncur (02:55):
which, in my opinion, is the right way to do
it. I mean, on the job trainingis where you really learn about
what it's like being anengineer, right? The education,
you learn some things,certainly, you get a foundation,
but you don't really learn howto be an engineer until you
start doing the work. And I'vealways been of the opinion that
(03:18):
the piece of paper is nice tohave, but, you know, show me
what you can do. That's whatreally matters. Yeah, you know,
Stuart Grant (03:23):
when I was starting my career with our
lucky enough in the facilities,I work at that a prototype shop,
so I was able to do the designwork, go and talk to the guys in
the prototype shop, get thethings made, get the feedback on
the design, and start learning alittle bit about design, those
guys down there, obviously,probably no guys later in their
(03:44):
career have a wealth ofknowledge to how to actually
manufacture these things you'recoming up with. So that was a
huge help. And nowadays,sometimes the protest hype shop
is a bit further away from thedesign engineering office, but
having it next door when I was akid was really formative.
Aaron Moncur (04:04):
You know, I feel like our paths were actually
quite similar. I did a degreeformally in engineering, but I
was always really interested indesign. I never formally did a
degree in industrial design orproduct design, but that was
always kind of what I was moreinterested in. And started off
working for a medical devicecompany, or company engineering
(04:27):
company that was engineeringservices, and our focus was
medical devices. We had aprototype shop right right there
in the building, and I was outon the mill or the lathe, you
know, making prototypes andassembling things and testing
things. So I, I feel an affinityalready towards you and your
your journey. So you work at afew pretty big places, Johnson
(04:50):
to Johnson and Depew. And priorto starting your company,
archetype med tech, you, I thinkyou were like part of the
executive leader. Shep atJohnson, and Johnson, is that
right? Probably
Stuart Grant (05:03):
not. The executive leadership at Johnson, that's
quite high up. I was the, mylast role. I was leading the MDR
program for the Pew joints, sothe Recon business. So that was
quite a significant role at thetime. But I wasn't, obviously
the J executives level.
Aaron Moncur (05:23):
I must have missed, misread that somewhere.
My point was that you had asignificant role at Johnson, and
Johnson, I'm sure things were,were great. That's a big
company. I imagine they takecare of their employees. And you
decided to jump ship and start,start archetype, med, tech.
What? What was the impetus fordoing that?
Stuart Grant (05:44):
So throughout my life, my dad, first of all, my
dad's in the military. So Imoved around a lot. As a kid,
though I stayed in the samecorporation for 23 years. I
actually moved every two orthree years within that
corporation. Wow. So I startedmy career here in the UK, in
Leeds, I think at 28 I moved toWarsaw Indiana. Spent seven
(06:10):
years in Warsaw Indiana, whichwas absolutely fantastic.
Towards the end of that, I waslike, What's my next job? Where
am I going to go next? Am Igoing to leave J and J go and
find something else. And thenanother role cropped up in China
in setting up the R and Dfacility in China, which doesn't
happen very often, thatcorporation like J and J says,
(06:32):
Okay, we're going to set up abig R D. So I was like, I'm
going to apply for that job, andI'm going to hopefully get it.
And I did. So another five yearsI was in China, working in the
facility there in Suzhou,teaching young engineers how to
develop medical devices. So theengineers in China at the time,
back in 2010 were coming fromsort of adjacent industries,
(06:55):
Black and Decker or DeWalt,ground force pumps, all those
sort of mechanical engineeringjobs, and they were looking into
medical engineering. They weretransferring those skills to
medical engineering, and we hadto teach them the medical
engineering part of engineeringand develop the products at the
same time. Sounds reallyexciting. Five years now, after
(07:16):
China, I moved back here to theUK in 2016 in that point, I was
thinking, what am I going to donext with my career? My career?
So I'm back in the UK, so I tooktwo options. And the MDR project
was just starting, and this wasa significant, as you know,
significant upheaval for theindustry, and I was given the
(07:36):
leadership role for the jointside. So big project, lots of
people. So I started that forfive years, but I also decided
probably I need to keep myoptions open once MDR finishes,
it's big project, but it doeshave an end date, and I've got
to go and find another job. So Istarted my PhD, my doctorate in
(07:59):
medical engineering, not medicalengineering. So medical
innovation. Probably know whatmy doctorate is in, right?
Medical Innovation. So I didthat in parallel to do an MDR
with the view that probably timeMDR finishes, I'll probably move
on from j and j if there's noother opportunities that crop
(08:20):
up. But I had to keep my optionsopen, and unfortunately, nothing
did crop up in j and j so Idecided, okay, here's the chance
mid 40s, let's go and start myconsultancy in medical
innovation and productdevelopment and see how it goes,
and help startups and scale upsdevelop their devices from all
the knowledge I have, and gettheir product to market approval
(08:42):
as quickly as possible, is my mygoal now, and
Aaron Moncur (08:46):
so tell us a little bit about your company.
How long has the companyexisted? Are you the sole
employee, or do you have a team?
Or do you work with contractors?
Obviously, the focus is ismedical that's a large industry.
Is there a niche focus withinthat? Yeah,
Stuart Grant (09:06):
so, so my experience is in orthopedics and
surgical devices, so implantsand instruments primarily. So
that's why I started the scope.
There's two people in thecompany, a business leader who
does all the business stuff andmyself, who does all the
principal consultancy stuff orthe engineering. We both lead
the business, looking forclients, what, what the business
(09:28):
set up to do is I lead theinnovations for any startup, and
I analyze what they're trying toachieve, what the proof of
concept is and what they'retrying to get to market proof as
quite quickly as possible. So Ianalyze that innovation process.
So do the pieces that have to gotogether and put a plan, and
that plan basically tells thecompany I'm working with is,
(09:53):
okay, this is going to take you18 months to five years,
depending on the complexity. Anda million to $5 million to
develop this first device, andthey hopefully will come back
with the cash and say, Okay,let's do it. Stuart, and at that
point, I go in contact my widenetwork of consultants who
(10:15):
usually working on their own,and then start contracting them
onto the project and buildingthat project team for that
company, project team to developthat device. And so the design
engineer might be on the projectfor a year of that five years,
(10:35):
medical writing might be at thestart and at the end, you know,
in making sure that we're notjust employing a bunch of people
burning a load of cash, wheresometimes they've got a load of
downtime, the plan is within thenetworks, syndicate of subject
matter experts. We're using themat the right time for the right
job, and trying to be asefficient as possible, as quick
(10:58):
as possible to get that proof ofconcept market approval and get
it into the market as quickly aspossible so these companies
don't run out of cash halfwaythrough their development.
Aaron Moncur (11:11):
Yeah, that sounds like a really smart, efficient
way to do it, as you havestarted archetyp archetype in
and built yourself as aconsultant. What are a few of
the biggest challenges you'verun into?
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Stuart Grant (12:13):
I think so I I've been closeted by a corporation
my entire career, so I've beenfocusing on product development,
a bit of budgeting, but as acompany, then you've got to
start thinking about the taxes,the accounting, the legal
aspects that you sort of knowhappen in the background of a
corporation, but you don'treally get involved unless you
(12:34):
have to sign a piece of paper.
Then you get involved a bitmore. But this is the part that
I'm really starting tounderstand now is the business
side of running a business, notjust being the principal
consultant or the projectleader. That's one thing. The
next thing is quite basic, isfinding the clients, right? So
there's, there's a problem herein the search. Problem is the
(12:58):
clients. Obviously, there'snever startups. They've got a
very small footprint. It mightbe a surgeon or salesperson with
an idea who's done a few designdesigns and got a prototype.
They've got a very smallfootprint in the market and
archetype. We've also got a verysmall footprint. We don't deal
with many clients at a time,three to five, that's maximum we
(13:19):
deal with. So matching thosetwo, the needs together, is
always a problem. I think a lotof smaller businesses face this
problem, and that's why I dopodcasts. I do a lot of writing
for the industry magazines. I'mon Facebook, not Facebook
LinkedIn, to make sure that I'mout there, and you start
(13:42):
startups can find me. The otherthing is really critical that
I've just sort of discovered inthe last year is the cash, the
money these businesses need, isreally critical, and the
industry set up around supplyingthat money. So the angels, VCs
and eventually the privateequity, if you get that far down
(14:05):
the line, is really critical. Sowhat I decided to do was go on
an executive education courseand financing an entrepreneurial
business at London BusinessSchool. Just completed it last
week to really understand thatecosystem. So I can help my
clients with that ecosystem aswell when they come to me,
because I can tell them how todo the development work and the
(14:27):
innovation work, but if they'reshort on cash, they can't really
execute anyway, so we need tohelp them also find the cash.
Aaron Moncur (14:37):
What are some of the things that you've learned
at this training that if I was anew client coming to you saying,
Stuart, I've got this idea for amedical device. How would you
advise me when it comes tomaking sure I have enough cash
or where to go to find that?
Yeah,
Stuart Grant (14:57):
so the the. The tutor there, guy called
Professor John Mullins. His bigpoint is, customer funded
businesses are the best. Trynever to go and lend borrow
money from a VC or an angel,because they'll take significant
(15:17):
equity and the shareholderagreement will be very
difficult, especially for afirst time founder, to navigate.
So his his thesis is trying toget the customer to fund the
business. And there's lots ofmodels to do that, which we did
talk about. The other key thingis valuing your business. How
much is it really worth in youngcompanies, because they don't
(15:39):
have much sales, or no sales atall, or not even a product.
Valuing that business andfiguring out how much equity you
should give away to a VC for themillions that you need to
develop their medical device isreally key. And this course is
in London Business School reallyhelped me understand all the
gears that the finance peopleuse to value value businesses.
(16:04):
So they'll value, obviously, inthe low end, and you'll do your
calculation to value at the highend. And the negotiation between
those two figures is what thefinal valuation is in the amount
of equity you'll you'll get toand the cash you'll get for that
equity outside of
Aaron Moncur (16:21):
the funding which, which obviously is critical,
right? Like you mentioned, whatare some of the other challenges
or roadblocks that you havecommonly seen these medical
device startups encounter? So
Stuart Grant (16:34):
one of the really important ones is considering
the indications, the clinicalindications, that the device is
going to be used for. And asengineers and designers, we get
really carried away that ourproduct we've come up with can
solve the world's issues, and itit might do that. I'm not
(16:54):
questioning that, but you can'tgo and get market approval on
solving the world's issues. Theregulatory people who have just
say, No thanks. It's going totake you loads of clinical
studies to prove all that you'regoing to solve these world
issues, and it's going to takeway too long. So what startups
need to think about is whatthey're going to go with first,
(17:16):
what indication they go withfirst, and then maybe a very
small, narrow clinicalindication in a list of loads of
Contra indications to startwith. And this is, this is
called the beachhead strategy.
So you get your beachheadmilitary analogy. Once you've
got their beachhead, you canstart building on that landing
zone, and then get more and moreindications as you move forward,
(17:39):
but to get that first part inthe market, just go for one very
narrow indication is really key.
Aaron Moncur (17:48):
And just to clarify, when you say
indication, it's basically whatthe device is intended to do,
right the problem or procedureit's intended to perform? Yeah,
exactly. Sorry.
Stuart Grant (17:58):
So in medical engineering, medical
development, we've got clinicalindication, which will be
statement that says exactly whatthat product is going to treat,
the disease state that's goingto treat, and then you've got a
longer sort of paragraph. It'sthe the intended use, how it's
going to be used. So theindication is really key, and
(18:20):
that's what drives the clinicalevaluation and the market
approval. That one smallsentence on your product, it's
one of the most important.
You've
Aaron Moncur (18:32):
worked in the med tech areas in the UK, the US and
China. How do regulatoryenvironments differ between the
countries, or are they prettysimilar? So
Stuart Grant (18:45):
MDD and FDA, QSR, the MDD, the original one, were
fairly similar. If you builtyour design control process
around MDD and MDR, you could goto both markets quite easily
with the introduction of MDR in2019 that changed everything.
(19:05):
The clinical requirements on MDRare so much more significant
than what the FDA are lookingfor. It is MDR is probably most
stringent in the world now toget through, and it is a major
difference from FDA. And we knowin coming next February, the FDA
are going to realign their QSRto ISO, 13485, which is going to
(19:31):
be QMs, our quality managementsystem regulation instead, the
FDA is calling it, but it'sstill not going to be anywhere
near the MDR regulations. Soactually, EU and the US turning
to the UK. So when Brexithappened, the UK took all the EU
(19:52):
rules and put them into the UKlaw. Within MDR was one of
those, and the thought was backin. Whenever it was. Now
everyone forgets 2017, 18, someLana. It's been so long that
these laws will be rewritten tohow the UK wanted to happen
because of all the COVID and allthe other political things that
(20:13):
happened in the UK here, it justhasn't happened. So the UK
medical device law and the MDRis basically the same at the
moment, and there's no realplans that I've heard of to
change anything so and and thenthe China. It's been such a
while since I've been in China,it's been nearly nine years.
(20:38):
I've not really kept up with theregulations in China, because it
changed so often, so I'm notsure what's going on there. So I
can't really comment very easilyon
Aaron Moncur (20:45):
that one, a total tangent question, when you moved
from the UK to the US, what weresome of the cultural surprises
or the culture shocks that youexperienced? Then do you if you
recall?
Stuart Grant (20:59):
Yeah, I do. And I'll put this in context, right?
So I moved from a city, Leeds inthe UK, to Warsaw, Indiana. So
it's the Midwest population,15,000 people. And what? How old
was I asked? Because, like, 2829something like that. I was a bit
(21:19):
stupid, but young and stupid,and didn't really get the
cultural aspects of what where Iwas going. And I mean, I made
quite a few sort of mistakesupset a few people, and
definitely did in those times,especially first six months
until I got a good friend who'sAmerican, and they started
(21:39):
telling me what sort of aspectsof the especially the Midwest,
and one of the small ones was,we don't do this in the UK. But
if someone, if you ask somebodythrough email to do something
right, can you send me thisdocument and they send it to
you, the assumption is you haveto send a thank you back, and I
(22:01):
did and I did the US, yeah,okay, and the US, and I didn't.
Because I was like, Okay,thanks. You go, I say a hint in
my hand, and
Aaron Moncur (22:12):
then the other party feels offended because
hey, didn't even say thank you.
Who is this guy?
Stuart Grant (22:16):
What a jerk. Yeah?
I was like, Oh, ouch. So thatinteresting, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (22:21):
that's super interesting, huh? That's just
not a thing. In UK, you get thething you requested and that's
it. No one expects any anyexchange beyond that.
Stuart Grant (22:30):
Not really same.
In Switzerland, Germany, theNordics don't really expect it.
If they're going out of theirway and you're asking for a huge
favor, maybe, yeah, you'll saythank you. But if it's just a
sort of daily job type of thing,
Aaron Moncur (22:43):
yeah, it seems more efficient. That's quicker,
Stuart Grant (22:46):
yeah? So that was what I can just think of right
now. That's probably, that's
Aaron Moncur (22:50):
a great example.
Yeah, that's a great example.
Well, let me take a short breakhere and share with everyone
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(23:10):
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are speaking with Stuart Grant.
So Stuart thinking back overthe myriad of different projects
(23:35):
that you've worked on, not justas a consultant for yourself,
but But working at variouscompanies over the years, is
there one that where you canshare an R and D project that
you work on, where there wasthere was a problem, there was
some challenge? Of course, everyproject has challenges, but is
(23:56):
there one in particular thatstands out where there was a
challenge that you and your teamneeded to overcome. What was the
challenge and how did youovercome it? Yeah, so
Stuart Grant (24:07):
I can't really talk in specifics here, but I
can talk in generalities aboutchallenges I've faced, and when
it, when initially comes from aproduct you've you've designed
and engineered, it's gone intothe market and something's gone
wrong. You didn't expect. It's atough one, right? It's like,
what did we do wrong? Why? Induring a product development
(24:29):
that goes on years and years,you make so many decisions, so
many design decisions of everylittle aspect. And when you're
thinking about an instrumentset, which this is an example of
where you've got 150 instrumentssitting in a tray, instrument
tray, all the different designs,and all assemble different and
(24:52):
some little thing goes wrong.
You're like, wow. Why? How didwe miss this? What did we do
wrong? And we just look back onthe paperwork and think. Yeah,
well, because we just think itwas a minor design, we didn't,
we didn't think we need to do asmuch testing as we thought. We
did. The risk assessment we diddidn't show that we didn't need
to do the testing on thatparticular function, but to say
(25:13):
that what we do, we obviously doa risk assessment to understand
what needs to be tested, what'sgoing to fail and what's going
to pass. But all our testing isabstractions from the real
world, right? We take our testsand we abstract it. We take the
real world and try and abstractit to a test, and we test it and
(25:35):
say, Okay, if this relates tothe real world in this sort of
verifiable way. But sometimes,you know, the human body and the
biomechanics are so complicatedthat the abstraction sometimes
doesn't work in the real worldthrows up challenges all the
time, like, oh, wow, didn't,didn't realize that happens in
(25:55):
engineering, in special medicalengineering. So you have to go
back and read, redesign yourtest, redesign the test method
for the next time you design it,hopefully you'll catch it. But
as we know, engineering design,most things are unique. That's
why I'm engineering it. They'renew to the world. So every test
can never capture every problemthat's and you only have a great
(26:19):
night time, which is the issue?
Aaron Moncur (26:23):
Yeah, you have lectured on the history of
innovation, which seems like afascinating topic. That's a
class I wouldn't mind sitting inon. How does your understanding
of the past inform your approachto current? You know challenges
in your consultancy and thecompanies that you work with,
Stuart Grant (26:44):
yeah, pretty much the way people have designed
stuff now thinking about thegreat engineers and designers of
the past. So first one isIsambard Kingdom Brunel, who
might know the US equivalent isRoebling you designed the
Brooklyn Bridge, the wires guy,ours isn't by Kingdom Brunel,
(27:08):
but you've got people likeJosiah Wedgwood, who developed
the first potteries and reallyunderstood the chemistry of
clays and how to make thedifferent Colors. So he really
did a lot of experimentation andrelating that to now, the way we
do things hasn't really changed.
The tools and the frameworks andthe processes we apply agile or
(27:30):
CAD have changed in eventualtechnology, fundamental thinking
as a human change. Ai changingfundamentally, a lot of things
at the moment, we'll have towait and see. But create human
creativity stays the same, andit all comes down to
understanding the world. Andwhen I say that, and this is why
(27:54):
I study history of innovation,is to be creative, one of the
fundamental things human has tohave is a huge bank of
knowledge. So as an engineer,you have to sort of cram as much
knowledge in there as you can,because creativity comes from
combination of two disparatethings joining together and
(28:15):
going, Oh, wow, if I did this.
This solves the problem. Sohaving that knowledge base to
pull from is really important.
And unfortunately, it's justhard graft, reading, watching
lots of things on YouTube,observing one of the things I
love to do, and it's a bit sad,I guess, is I used to in in the
(28:38):
US that you have lows, go aroundlows and look all the mechanisms
and designs and see how othershave solved them, or when seers
existed, going to the Craftsmansection of Sears, that was
always an exciting thing to takeout for me.
Aaron Moncur (28:57):
I know exactly what you mean. I am constantly
looking at different productsand devices and trying to
understand how they weredesigned and how the mechanisms
work and things like that. Mywife is always rolling her eyes
at me, or, you know, thinkingI'm silly for the but this is
what we do, right as engineers,we find it fascinating how other
people have designed something,what looking forward to the
(29:23):
actually, I want to go back fora second you mentioned how it's
difficult to gather, toaccumulate all this knowledge
that is required for innovationto occur right within a human
brain. Unfortunately, it's notlike the matrix where we can
just upload a file of the, youknow, the past 100 years of
(29:47):
design and innovation. Does,does that? Does that infer, then
that? Or maybe that's not theright way to ask this. How have
Have you seen younger NG. Thatdon't have that bank of
knowledge. Are there any protips or best practices that you
have observed or that yourecommend for younger engineers
(30:10):
to to climb that hill morequickly? Or is it, is it just a
grind and takes you know, yearsand years and years of observing
and learning and studying. So
Stuart Grant (30:23):
what I because I like the product development
process side, a couple of soyoung engineers. I usually give
them two books just kick themoff. Is one of them is called,
just called product new productdevelopment by App Engine
Ulrich, which just teaches themwhat the whole process is. And
the other one is bio design,that teaches them the the bio,
(30:46):
the biomedical engineering sideof innovation, so it helps them
get in key and it is just, youknow, looking at the trade
magazines every month or goingto as many conferences as you
can and see if you can justbuild that knowledge. But it is
just, I don't know if there's athere's a shortcut of just
(31:10):
reading and attending andobserving everything that's
going on around you tounderstand the problem. It is
just as quickly you canaccumulate that knowledge, but
you also have to be able torecall it as well. And that's
where the creativity part comesin as well, to be able to recall
that knowledge. I
Aaron Moncur (31:29):
remember working with a brand new engineer years
ago, and every couple of weeksit seemed like he'd come back
and say, Hey, what? What can Ido to really accelerate this
process and get to like a seniorlevel engineer, you know, much,
much faster. And I never feltlike I had a great answer for
(31:49):
him back then, but I thinktoday, looking back, the way I'd
answer it is you just have tospend more time if you want to
climb that ladder faster, if youwant to accumulate that
experience and knowledge faster,spend more time doing your job
or not even doing your job,necessarily, but spend more time
becoming an engineer, right?
Whether it's at work or on yourown time for personal projects,
(32:12):
just do things related toengineering more often. It just
comes down to the number of repsthat you can get in, and what
time frame can you get thosereps in? Right? Spend a couple
of hours after work right onyour own, reading things and
trying things and buildingthings and So, long story short,
I agree with you. I think itjust it comes down to spending
(32:37):
more time, and if you want tocut it off at eight hours a day
after work is over, great,that's fine, right? No harm in
that, but you're not going togrow as an engineer as fast as
someone else is putting in extrahours beyond the minimum. I
think I would also say thathaving mentors is really, really
important. I think that is onekey that unlocks. I don't know
(33:00):
about acceleration, but it's notgoing to slow you down anyway.
Not having those mentors to turnto, I think, can be an
impediment to growing as anengineer.
Stuart Grant (33:15):
That's a great point. I just add to that. So
I'm a mentor for some collegekids doing engineering, but I'm
also also be, also have mentors,so both ways, so people teaching
me how to be a better leader andconsultant, and then I translate
(33:36):
what I've learned back down thelad. And I think we all should
try and do that all the way upto to the end of, you know, our
careers or and past. A couplecouple of my mentors are, were
in the 70s, and they were like,Well, why didn't you go and try
that? Stewart? I'm like, Okay,I'll go and try that. Was a good
idea. Didn't take a fab it'ssome basics. Just the now, an
(34:00):
engineer coming out of collegedoesn't know how, doesn't quite
write a CV very well, or a coverletter, or needs, needs to do a
dummy interview, and you canhelp them do that. Those sort of
things are so important. So thebasics, if you remember back
when you were younger, thinking,shit, I need a job, well, I'm
gonna go and find a job. Ifsomebody was there just to say,
(34:21):
my, you know, my dad was in themilitary. He had no real
experience of getting auniversity degree and going
getting a profession. He was hejoined the military at 16 years
old. He was there for 26 years.
So, you know, he but that's whyyou need mentors sometimes, is
the people to fill in thosegaps, and they've always helped
me through my career.
Aaron Moncur (34:43):
I'm going to go back to something you said
earlier during thisconversation. You mentioned, I
think it was when you were at Jand J and you were you're
finishing up on a big projectfor them and thinking about
what's next. What am I going todo after this? Nothing really
popped up at j and j, so youdecided to go. Off on your own.
You said something to the effectof, if I don't find something
(35:05):
here, I'm going to have to golook for another job. I think a
lot of engineers that would be aterrifying prospect. I have to
go look for another job. I don'twant to go look for another job.
I'm happy, I'm safe, I'mcomfortable here. Yet it seemed
like you had this overwhelmingconfidence that it's not that
big a deal. I'm just going to gofind something else where. Where
(35:27):
did that confidence come? Do youthink
Stuart Grant (35:30):
confidence? I'm not sure I thought I was
thinking I talked to my wife atthe time. You know, it was three
or four years ago, if we don'tdo it now in my mid 40s, I will
stay in a corporation till I'm65 right for the next 20 years.
So what do I want to do inlooking at the leaders before me
(35:54):
in their where their careerswent after, like 50s? I was
like, do I want to do that? Idon't want to go into details,
you know, I do. I want to bethat person. I was like, let's
go and try this. I've got, I'vegot a bit of savings behind me
to do it for a couple of yearsto see how it goes. If not, I
(36:17):
can always probably go and getanother corporate medical
engineering leadership rolesomewhere they in medical
medical engineers, such a smallfield, I even go back into
corporate or go into more of aconsult contracting role in
medical engineering, doingprojects, six bunch of projects,
or one year projects at a timeas a contractor, which works as
(36:39):
well. So there was many ops. Iknew there was many options, if
just this doesn't work for me topursue after this anyway, so it
was like, it's a risk, but therisk is medium. Let's say
Aaron Moncur (36:54):
that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, you had enough
money saved up. So if it didn'twork out, you had a year or two
to fund yourself, and thenthey're always going to be
opportunities for a person withyour skill set. And
Stuart Grant (37:06):
that's why you've got to keep educating yourself
and learning through yourcareer, right? Because you've
got to have that skill set isstill applicable today. Yeah,
yep.
Aaron Moncur (37:16):
What are some of the trends that you're looking
forward to in med tech, medicaldevice engineering, what? What
do you think is going to be thenext big thing, 345, years from
now?
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Stuart Grant (38:16):
Yeah, so obviously, the big things now is
AI and robotics. I saw a statlast I think it was 150 robotics
companies, surgical robotics,that companies started last year
in all different aspects of thebody, so high tissue and soft
tissue, so they could obviouslygo through a level of
consolidation over the next 12months, 24 months, and find out
(38:41):
who wins. AI is going to getmore and more into particularly
imaging. Is doing a lot ofimaging of CT and MRI scans to
find various tumors. But that'sgoing to go more into surgical
imaging, those surgicalstructures, using AI to help
doing that, which is probablygoing to be really important. So
(39:03):
that's going to be like aplatform technology. I think so
companies will build a imagingplatform technology that then
will be put into a surgicalrobot. But might also be a
platform technology. When I sayplatform, the iPhone is a
platform that's used with apps,right? So then an end, company
(39:23):
will then create a indicationspecific robot based on all
those different platforms thatother companies have developed,
which will be exciting. At themoment, it's very what's the
word? It's very top down. Socompany develops the robot, the
software, everything that goesinto that capital piece that
(39:45):
goes into the or, I think it'dbe more modular as we move
forward. Oh,
Aaron Moncur (39:50):
that's very interesting, huh? Yeah, right
now, I don't pretend to knowthis landscape as well as others
out there who are more. Expertsin this field. But as far as
surgical robotics, it seems tome like Intuitive Surgical is
way ahead of everyone else. Andin recent years, some of the
(40:11):
other strategics, like strikerand Medtronic and J and J have
been developing their ownsurgical robots. Do you think
that? I mean, does anyone get acatch intuitive, you mentioned
150 robotics companies startedup last year. Is that? Is that a
race not worth racing? Or do youthink that there are some some
(40:35):
companies that are going tocatch up to them?
Stuart Grant (40:38):
I guess they'll have to develop something really
specific, the intuitive onaddressing at the moment. So,
yeah, think about the da Vinci.
Da Vinci was created 30 yearsago. It said to version five or
six at the moment. I can'tremember which one. So that's
they've developed a robot everyfive years or so, and increase
(40:59):
those indications for thebeachhead thing. The first
version only did something verybasic, but as that five versions
have come along, they'veincreased the capabilities of
that thing over 25 years. It's along time, right? Yeah. So yeah,
got CMR here in the UK, sort oftrying to compete with them.
Intuitive. But, yeah, I think onthe heart tissue side, there
(41:23):
will probably be two or threerobots. There may be on J and J
or striker or Zb. There might besomebody else that all these
companies, these implantcompanies, actually use to do
implant their products. At themoment, it's all bespoke. It's
all virtually verticallyintegrated designs. Maybe that
(41:46):
might change the other thing,VR, you know, ar, VR, XR, hollow
lanes is being discontinued. Sohas apple vision been
discontinued? At the moment,we've only got the meta,
whatever device now, and thehive and a few other Magic Leap
(42:09):
I'm not sure that there's muchmore legs in VR at the moment. I
think people have got a bittired of it, maybe like 3d
screens that we had 10 yearsago. It's just not doing what is
said it's going to do. So maybethe current incarnation of those
devices might sort of fade away,and in five or 10 years, a
(42:31):
totally new type of VR systemwill come along.
Aaron Moncur (42:37):
Yeah, I could see that. I remember, I don't
remember who the companies were,but I remember tablets were a
thing before Apple came out withtheir iPad, but they never
really caught on, and they itwasn't a market that was
growing, and it kind of seemedlike they just went away, and
then Apple came out with theiPad, and all of a sudden, oh,
(42:57):
I've got to have an iPad. I'vegot to have a tablet. And now
they're ubiquitous. So I wonder,you know how that will repeat
itself for XR we shall see.
Yeah, I'm
Stuart Grant (43:12):
not sure if this anecdotal, but the use of iPads
is decreasing a little bit atthe moment as well, from a
professional perspective, mostlygaming on your iPad now or
watching movies, it's not as aprofessional device. I think
they hoped it to be, yeah,
Aaron Moncur (43:29):
yeah, yeah. I just use my laptop. Well, if I was a
young engineer interested ingetting into surgical robotics,
and I was asking you for advice.
What kind of advice would yougive me?
Stuart Grant (43:47):
I don't know what advice surgical robotics. It's
not really my area of realexpertise. There's, I guess, as
a young engineer, you've got alot of time to see the robotics
industry develop. So go and finda local surgical robotics
company and join them, knowing,though they might not be the
(44:10):
winners in the race, but you'lllearn a lot. And that's the
thing about when companies fail,the companies fail, but the
people don't. The people go onto do other things, other great
stuff. So go and find a localrobotics company. They'll employ
you, pay you, hopefully pay youas well, and learn something and
(44:30):
then just discover the marketthat way.
Aaron Moncur (44:35):
That's wonderful.
Doing is better than learningabout doing well. Stuart, this
has been wonderful. Thank you somuch for sharing your precious
time and wisdom and insightswith us. We've hit on a lot of
things. Is there anything elsethat we should talk about? Any
other questions we shouldexplore that we haven't talked
(44:55):
about yet? I
Stuart Grant (44:58):
think one of the one of the questions you. You
usually ask is about the speedof speed of engineering, and how
you get faster than that. And Ijust would like to say that
moving my whole business is nowis moved to the cloud. Right
now. I don't have the incumbentsof a corporate IT system that
has to walk under I just madesure I went out and got the SAS
(45:21):
products that really helped mybusiness moving. And I know
before in December, you talkedto John Hirsch, on on design.
After that, I went made sure I'dgot a got a license for on
design, not on design, onshape,sorry, on design or something
else on shape, because that is agreat tool in encouraging some
(45:43):
of the CAD people I work withwho are solid works fanatics to
try on shape, because it worksso much easier in this in this
environment where we're allworking from home in different
offices and all sorts over theplace. So
Aaron Moncur (45:58):
yeah, I think it's the future. Yeah, I think
onshape, they've done such agreat job. And, you know,
SolidWorks is very much stillthe incumbent, and they're going
to be hard to dethrone, justbecause they're everywhere. But
I think it's going to happen.
And I we don't use onshape atthe office, so this is not a
paid plug for onshape oranything like that. But we use
(46:20):
it at our we have a littlevolunteer program called CAD
Club, where we teach kids how touse CAD, and we use, we use on
shape there, because it's somuch easier to get into. You
know, you can run it on. Thesekids just have crummy public
school issued laptops, right?
They're not work stations by anymeans, and it works great.
(46:43):
Onshape works great. There'snothing to install. They can
collaborate online on the samedesign at the same time. It's
just like a, you know, workingon a Word document, two people
working on the same worddocument in different places at
the same time, same thing. Soreally an incredible platform.
And I think five to 10 yearsfrom now, I don't know,
(47:04):
SolidWorks,
Stuart Grant (47:06):
John is an amazing guy. He's a legend as well. He
Aaron Moncur (47:09):
is. He is, yeah, yep, a legend. I mean, it's
incredible, right? The same guystarted SolidWorks, which just
has defined CAD in ourgeneration for the industry. And
now he's invented on shape, andthat, I think, is going to, my
opinion, just my opinion, goingto dethrone SolidWorks over the
(47:30):
next five to 10 years. So he'sliterally brought, probably, I
don't know, 60, 70% of the CADto the industry over this 3040,
year period, amazing. Yeah, I
Stuart Grant (47:45):
think my last comment about, you know,
learning is, yeah, I'm dyslexic.
I hate reading. It's but I haveto, and I have to force myself
to read a book, leads to one amonth. I tried to do more than
one a month, but one a month ismy target, and I can remember
the first book I read. And Ididn't read a proper book until
(48:06):
I was 23 cover to cover, becauseI was trying to, always, as
engineers or designers, alwaystrying to avoid reading. But I
forced I read this first book.
It was called longitude by davaSobel, and it got me into
reading. It was a science book,and that's where it took me down
reading about science andinnovation and engineering and
(48:28):
just pursuing that whole idea.
But as as engineers, we hatereading. So one of the things
you got to do, unfortunately, isread a lot to get that knowledge
base of what's going on outthere
Aaron Moncur (48:41):
any on that subject, any great book
recommendations that you canshare, specifically some that
might be interesting to the, youknow, the engineering audience
here, science fiction orsomething like that.
Stuart Grant (48:55):
I'm just looking over to my bookshelf because I
was a so one of the really greatbooks is called the Idea
Factory. It's about Bell Labsfrom the 1940s to the probably
the 1980s with Claude, Shannonitch, Shannon, the guys who
invented the transistor inthere, Shannon Shockley, and
(49:18):
can't remember the third guy whowon the Nobel Prize, but it was
all about how Bell Labs inJersey was developed all the
engineers and scientists there.
It's really, really good book,just looking at the author, John
gerdner,
Aaron Moncur (49:32):
terrific. All right, I haven't read that one
that sounds fascinating. Well,Stuart, thank you so much again
for being with us today. Reallyappreciate it. This is a
fascinating conversation, and Ithink a lot of a lot of people
are really going to benefit fromand appreciate all of this. So
thank you again. So much.
Stuart Grant (49:49):
Hi. You're welcome, Aaron. It's great chat
today.
Aaron Moncur (49:54):
I'm Aaron Moncur, founder of pipeline design and
engineering. If you like whatyou heard today, please. Us
share the episode to learn howyour team can leverage our
team's expertise developingadvanced manufacturing
processes, automated machinesand custom fixtures,
complemented with product designand r&d services. Visit us at
(50:14):
Team pipeline.us. To join avibrant community of engineers
online. Visit the wave. Dotengineer, thank you for
listening. You.
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