Suprera Innovation Co., Ltd. is a startup company with a misssion of applying technology and innovation for the creative design and  development of medical equipment products by Thai people.

The company focuses on designing and developing medical vehicle technology, such as COVID-19 screening vehicles, breast cancer examination vehicles, health examination vehicles, ambulances, and X-ray vehicles. The ambulances and X-ray vehicles have been registered in the Thai innovation as “Ambulance with an antimicrobial coating”, “Safe structure ambulance with antimicrobial coating”, and “X-ray vehicle with antimicrobial coating”.

The company also continues to develop technology and intelligent systems for medical application. One of them is Tele-Medicine, the system that connects and transmits information within and between hospitals, and Automated robotic systems, e.g., medication dispensing systems.

Mr. Krai Kanchanawatee, Managing Director of Suprera Innovation Co., Ltd., recalled that he read the news about a passenger having van accident that caused the roof to tear off, and there was a passenger who jumped out of the vehicle. This news referred to an article about passenger safety by Dr. Sarawut Lerspalungsanti, Research Team Leader of Design and Industry Solutions Research Team, Engineering Design and Computation Research Group of MTEC. However, Mr. Krai Kanchanawatee was interested because, during that time, the company also received information from customers who were primarily in hospital groups that many cases of ambulance accidents caused the loss of medical personnel. He, therefore, had an idea to apply the knowledge and abilities of Thai researchers to help solve these problems, and this was the beginning of the collaboration between the company and MTEC.

With the determination to develop ambulances to meet safety standards, the company has invited Dr. Sarawut to give a lecture to provide knowledge and understanding to its personnel. Since then, the company and MTEC have continuously collaborated on research projects for more than five years.

Mr. Krai Kanchanawatee said that the collaboration went smoothly. The company may not be skilled in some issues, but MTEC research team has provided assistance and knowledge transfer in theory and practice to the company. Furthermore, when the company received complaints from its customers, MTEC research team has helped resolve the problem within a reasonable time.

As the market of medical devices is a niche market, marketing is tricky because it involves people’s lives. For this reason, when asked about the company’s strength that makes the customers trust and choose its products, Mr. Krai Kanchanawatee said that the company must build customer confidence in its products. For example, in an ambulance or a medication dispensing system, when a customer encounters problems (pain points) from the application, whether big or small, the company will find a solution to solve those problems and provide customers with the highest satisfaction. Therefore, after-sales service, taking care of the customers, and helping them solve problems are what win their hearts and are considered to be the strength and selling points of the company.

The company is willing to find a solution, whether the problems are about procuring something or research and development with various agencies, such as MTEC. Therefore, the collaboration between the company and MTEC is another way to solve customer problems, and the results came out as required.

In addition, the collaboration with MTEC has also created a breakthrough in production capability. For example, the latest project is developing a car manufacturing process with a strong structure, which initially took quite a long time to produce. Thus, if the company creates a production process that can increase productivity by using fewer human resources and using the remaining human resources to set up a production line, it will help the company create market penetration more easily.

Mr. Krai Kanchanawatee said that Suprera Innovation Co., Ltd is the first company that created an innovation of “Safe structure ambulances with antimicrobial coating”, which is marketable. Other creations, such as the Patient Isolation and Transportation Chamber (the PETE), are already sold in many places. However, the amount of use may not be as high as expected because the production cost is higher than the chambers imported from China. On the contrary, only importing may not be sustainable; we should rely on ourselves to produce and operate medical devices locally. Although the price may not be the lowest but if the quality is good and can be produced locally, the more application, the more price competition. For this reason, the company will continuously work with MTEC.

Mr. Krai Kanchanawatee suggested that in product development, if there is a collaboration in selecting more suppliers, especially on new technologies, this will help the company step into the market faster with more confidence. If we have a good selection of suppliers, it will not only help reduce costs but also help reduce risk management that may arise from them. Lastly, if MTEC collaborates with various testing agencies on the testing samples’ delivery times, it would help the company proceed more quickly.