How Eric Robinson and CME Corp. keep the system moving.
By Pete Mercer
In the world of healthcare, patients and providers rely on medical equipment to be where it needs to be – functioning, installed, and ready to save lives. But behind every delivery is an intricate web of planning, coordination, and execution that often goes unnoticed.
At the center of CME Corp.’s delivery service is Eric Robinson, Executive Vice President of Operations. With more than three decades at the company, Robinson has helped transform CME from a 12-person operation into a national logistics powerhouse with over 350 employees. In this interview with Repertoire Magazine, Robinson shares insights into the complexity of healthcare equipment distribution, the challenges of navigating evolving industry demands, and the importance of building teams that can deliver – literally – on the company’s promises.
Navigating industry shifts
Over his 32-year career with CME, Robinson has seen the size and scope of the industry change right before his eyes. Through the years, CME has grown from an operation with 12 employees to a well-oiled machine that employs more than 350 people across the country. He said, “The sheer size of the business has changed, and technology has changed in a way that now enables us to do things that we never would have dreamed of in the past, like providing visibility for product movement and allowing us to forecast.”
CME operates as a full-service solution that supplies the healthcare equipment their customers need, as well as turn-key delivery service and biomedical service that provides support after the healthcare equipment has been installed.
“One of our big value propositions is that we offer delivery and installation services for the equipment that we sell,” Robinson said. “As an equipment distributor, we source equipment from a variety of manufacturers and as a value-add service, we can aggregate the product at our warehouses across the country until delivery. From there, we work with the customer to schedule the delivery and installation of that product.”
Robinson said that ‘dance,’ of coordinating all those functions, is the most challenging part of the job. It’s all about timing the shipment of the product to CME’s staging facilities at the right time so it is available for delivery when the customer needs it, while mitigating the added cost of long-term storage. That process is one of those invisible aspects of the healthcare supply chain that Robinson wished more people could see.
He said, “I just don’t know if everyone understands everything that goes into delivering healthcare equipment. It begins with account managers acutely understanding the needs of their customers and recommending the best equipment for needs and budget, to preparing the quote and receiving a purchase order, scheduling receipt of the product(s) to the CME warehouse, managing the logistics of warehousing and staging, and finally delivering and installing the equipment to its service location, when it is convenient for the customer. Healthcare equipment acquisition is a finely tuned, overarching process that is dependent on multiple departments continuously communicating and flexibly coordinating with each other so at the end of the day the customer can deliver care to their patients without interruption.”
During the pandemic, Robinson and his team at CME navigated the greater supply chain disruptions that were creating problems for industries across the board. Thanks to a good bit of creativity and their resources as a distributor, they were able to meet the needs of their customers. These days, tariffs are creating uncertainty around budgetary issues for everyone, which means that many of CME’s customers are ordering larger quantities of equipment to avoid future tariff impacted purchases. This is a new thing for Robinson and his team, so they’ve developed a plan that allows customers to lock in their budgets by placing orders now for delivery of healthcare equipment in the future.
“That’s created the challenge of developing solutions to procure and store the equipment for them,” he said. “Because we aren’t a bank, we have developed a mutually advantageous fee for storage service that answers the customer’s need to order and store quantities of equipment as well as covers the associated expenses. The dynamic nature of the healthcare industry forces us to evolve the service options we’re offering our customers, and refine the discussion points we have with them.”
Building effective teams
For Robinson, an effective team is the foundation of CME’s success and the fulfilling career that he’s had at CME. Three directors report directly to Robinson, managing the departments that he oversees – Dan Chevrette, Director, Service Solutions; Kelli Bugbee, Corporate Director, Customer Service & Purchasing; and Wade Oliveira, Corporate Director, Distribution Operations. In addition to managing their departments, these directors work directly with the project managers who are responsible for communicating with customers to coordinate the delivery of medical products into CME’s warehouses and scheduling delivery of the medical equipment to the customer around staff and patient needs.
According to Robinson, the project managers and installation teams are the ones who often go unnoticed. The installation teams operate out of more than 25 warehouses scattered throughout the country, receiving, preparing, and delivering the products that CME sells to its customers. In order to fully service these customers, the installation teams can spend days and occasionally weeks away from families, especially on large installation projects.
During the interview, Robinson talked about a recent project in the Rio Grande Valley, the very southern tip of Texas. This is an eight-hour trek from the nearest warehouse, which meant that there was a rotation of half a dozen team members routinely making visits to that site for more than a month. Additionally, they’re working in the Texas heat in July, which can further complicate a job like this. While the work isn’t easy, Robinson says that his team understands the vital role they play in the overall customer experience.
“Those team members are the last people our customers see, so they have a lot riding on their shoulders – and they come through with shining colors,” he said. “I admire those guys and gals for being able to do what they do. It is because of them and the people behind the scenes working in tandem with one another that our delivery and installation value proposition has been so successful.”