A team of 20 young engineers is developing an impressive track record of helping global manufacturers by focusing on innovation and infusing new technologies into their clients’ products. Founded in 1998, Key Tech has established a creative atmosphere where talented engineers can design new, innovative technology products for the medical device, industrial instrument and consumer electronics markets.

In a restored vaudeville theater in downtown Baltimore, an entrepreneurial engineering team is practicing technology artistry for the benefit of global product companies like Black & Decker, Fisher Scientific, W.R. Grace and Seagate Technologies. Key Tech CEO Jenny Regan, her partners and their team of engineers and designers help their manufacturing customers convert new technologies into commercial products and translate technology applications from one market to another. “We provide a creative culture and environment where talented product engineers can design new technologies into new innovative products for our client companies,” Regan says.

Key Tech’s offices include a stage and mezzanine. The open architecture provides a fun hangout and is accessible to everyone on the team.

“Key Tech is a successful catalyst for product innovation because the company hires talented people and then provides an environment of creativity and openness in which these people can stretch their thinking,” says Philip Zanghi, marketing manager at W.R. Grace.

Almost all of Key Tech’s clients are innovating new products for multiple worldwide markets. Even a corporation with a strong product development group and impressive offshore manufacturing assets will engage Key Tech to research new technologies, innovate ways to use them in the client’s product line, and then build quick, functional prototypes to show proof of principle. This feeds the corporation’s product development process with new ideas and keeps the pipeline full without compromising existing product markets. “We pride ourselves on helping our clients fast-track technology innovation without requiring a rapid turnabout in their own culture or processes,” Regan says.

BTE Technologies, a leader in physical evaluation and rehabilitation products and services, has outsourced to Key Tech for several technology upgrades to its product lines. BTE recently merged with a Canadian manufacturer of complementary equipment. “A significant element of our success in the merger was the upgrading of the newly absorbed technology product line,” says Chuck Wetherington, CEO of BTE.

As a part of merging and renewing BTE’s physical assessment technologies, Key Tech was sourced for design revisions of several systems and wireless conversion of a 21-tool system used worldwide for physical therapy and work-related performance assessment. The resulting systems are globally deployable, and customer ease-of-use has been improved. Key Tech has supported field trials of the new systems for employer services in several countries.

Another client of Key Tech is a mid- to low-volume, high-margin electronic equipment manufacturer that recently outsourced development of a new European product line to Key Tech. The new product is a high-volume disposable that interfaces with the company’s existing product line, but is designed specifically for the European market. The Key Tech collaboration gave the client access to design knowledge and experience in the development of a high-volume, cost-critical disposable. It also provided the client a ready-made and focused-design team that had experience with European codes and cultural issues, built from experience developing products for other clients with similar constraints. As an added benefit, this particular client decided to become an active member of the development team and is learning first-hand how Key Tech works.

Some global multinational players have tapped Key Tech for their product innovation. Whirlpool came to Key Tech to transform its spa control circuitry from a model-specific variety to a singular modular solution common to the product line. Key Tech’s work helped Whirlpool add feature sets while reducing part count and related manufacturing costs. This permitted flexible price points for various international markets by reducing build costs, and allowed the adoption of additional electronic features available in the more premium products.

Key Tech also has worked with Seagate Technologies, whose technology products dominate the world electronic storage market with its hard drive and other computer storage devices. Key Tech designed and built custom micro- and nano-scale test fixtures for its research scientists, whose mission is central to Seagate’s leadership. Key Tech’s work is not limited to American manufacturers. One client is The Danfoss Group, which is headquartered in Denmark. The firm is a leading manufacturer of valves and fluid-handling components for HVAC and industrial applications. Danfoss came to Key Tech to improve product design and manufacturing for an industrial refrigeration system controller that is sold in several different world markets.

“Key Tech’s design simplification and standardization allows us to reduce our manufacturing costs and dramatically simplifies our global distribution network,” says John Eisenhardt, director of product engineering for Danfoss Electronic Controls and Sensors. Key Tech provides manufacturers with an offsite, confidential and independent research laboratory for new product innovations. A focused design group not distracted by the daily challenges of product line maintenance gets the job done quickly and introduces fresh thinking. Risks associated with design transfer to manufacturing are minimized by a solid up-front specification and then good communication and project integration between the client company’s sourcing and manufacturing teams and the Key Tech design team.

At the annual National Manufacturing Week event in Chicago this past spring, Regan noted how many Asian manufacturers were present on the exhibit floor, the large number of Asian companies with very well-spoken sales representatives and growing U.S. product portfolios. The increasing sophistication of Asian manufacturing partners is also evidenced by their initiative in becoming more involved earlier in the design process. “We receive increasing calls and unsolicited e-mails from Asian manufacturers offering to prototype in any and all media in exchange for winning product manufacturing contracts,” Regan says.

It’s not just in manufacturing where Asian-U.S. competition is heating up, either. Asian firms are winning design awards, too, and the U.S. is winning fewer. This year, U.S. companies only won 11 of the 26 Industrial Design Society of America Gold design awards. The other 15 from overseas, with one-third of them to design firms in China, Japan and Korea. In contrast, U.S. companies swept more than 80 percent of the IDEA Golds in 2001, no awards went to China or Japan.

“There is a serious decline in the number of American students that are choosing technical or engineering degrees and with innovation on the rise overseas, that can have a direct impact on America’s ability to compete,” Regan says.

China alone is spending millions of dollars on design innovation, turning out thousands of engineering and design graduates a year. Regan says American manufacturers can stay ahead by playing to their strengths our unique ability to innovate. “Don’t compete on their terms. Don’t engage competition based on price or even try to out-lean the competition. Just out-innovate,” she says.

Peter R. Gourlay is chairman of the Business Growth Committee of the World Trade Center Institute. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .