Odoo Growth Boost: Helping AuST Development Scale New Heights in Medical Manufacturing

As modern medicine advances to new heights once only dreamt of, so have medical devices and technology. The high quality of and access to these specialized devices has led to the growth of the medical product development and manufacturing industries. One company that has risen to meet the needs of modern medicine is AuST Development. 

AuST Development, based in Mountain View, California, designs and manufactures medical device products and their components. Founders Christian Eversull and Stephen Leeflang have a background in the medical device industry, having worked as development engineers in the start-up world prior to starting AuST Development. While their experiences were positive, the duo craved more diversity in the work they were doing, prompting them to found their own company. Today, AuST Development designs and manufactures devices and components for start-ups and major medical device companies alike. The company specializes in minimally invasive devices, including cardiovascular and gastrointestinal products.

Having grown tremendously since its start in 2010 - from 15 employees to 400! - AuST Development needed comprehensive business software to help manage the manufacturing side of the business. Odoo, it turned out, was the solution.

Prior to implementing Odoo, AuST Development was using Quickbooks and Excel. At the time, the company was focused primarily on product development but had plans to move into the manufacturing space. Founder Christian Eversull explains that while the combination of Quickbooks and Excel was working well, he felt as though the old system “didn’t appear to be scalable if we were going to become legitimate manufacturers.” With this top of mind, Christian decided to get ahead of the issue before a potential breaking point occurred and began researching alternative software solutions. He explains that SAP was out of the question because it was too expensive. Other options he considered were Netsuite and Salesforce, as well as more middle-ground options such as Microsoft Dynamics that looked “old and tattered.” Ultimately, Odoo stood out due to its pricing and infrastructure that could withstand AuST Development’s future growth.

Odoo looked like nice, modern architecture: a solid backend database. We had the ability to self-host. We had the ability to modify to meet our needs.

AuST Development went live with Odoo around seven years ago, and Odoo has been supporting the business’ growth ever since. During its implementation process, AuST Development worked with several Odoo Partners, including Novobi and Forgeflow, all of which Christian says were “great.” The company now does all of its Accounting and finances through Odoo, as well as Sales orders and Purchase orders. AuST Development is also building out its material management, shop floor, and training capabilities within Odoo and hopes that these features will be integrated in the near future. 

Perhaps the biggest benefit for AuST Development’s team with the new system has been Odoo’s Inventory management capabilities. With manufacturing now a large part of the company’s business, robust and integrated inventory management is a must. Christian explains that Odoo has been critical in the company’s move and growth into this space: 

There are processes we wouldn’t be able to do without having [Odoo’s] infrastructure in place, like inventory management, for example.

Christian also explains that the move to an ERP software isn’t always smooth sailing, and while in the past he’s sometimes been frustrated with the level of customization that Odoo occasionally needs in order to fit his company’s specific workflows, Odoo’s customizable nature is also the exact reason why he chose the software in the first place: “I chose [Odoo] exactly for that flexibility.”

In fact, many of the most useful features that Odoo provides AuST Development have been customized. Christian says that the company built a Certificate of Compliance issuing application within Odoo, barcodes all of its documentation, and scans files within the database. 

As AuST Development continues to make an impact in the medical device industry, it finally has a software system that is capable of keeping up with its growth. With Odoo taking over the reins in inventory management, accounting, sales and purchase orders, and other nitty-gritty day-to-day tasks, AuST Development now has the time to focus on designing and manufacturing medical devices critical to lives across the country.