Toshiba trimmed its engineering and manufacturing staff at Toshiba America MRI (TAMI) in South San Francisco by about 3% last month. The reduction was aimed at eliminating redundant functions resulting from the acquisition of Diasonics' magnetic resonance imaging business in late 1989, said Takashi Hayashi, president of Toshiba America Medical Systems (TAMS).
"As both Toshiba and Diasonics were involved in MRI system design, manufacturing and sales, it was inevitable that there would be some duplication of functions between the two organizations," he said.
Toshiba and Diasonics cooperated in the development of MRI technology for five years before merging their efforts. Technology used initially in Diasonics' 0.35-tesla MRI system--spin-echo processing, for example--was adapted for use in Toshiba's 0.5-tesla scanner. As a result, engineering groups at TAMI and in Japan were performing similar functions, said Ronald B. Schilling, senior vice president and general manager of TAMS.
"We took a year to analyze all the programs in MRI, deciding the best place for research and development, assembly and manufacturing. In doing so, we found certain redundancies," Shilling said.
The Radiologic Imaging Laboratory of the University of California at San Francisco, which worked closely with Diasonics MRI, will serve as the core research organization for TAMI in many future projects, he said.
Although integration of the two MRI groups has caused the reduction of U.S. staff, resources allocated to both U.S. manufacturing and R&D should increase in the future as Toshiba attempts to boost its position in this market, he said.
Responsibility for manufacturing the 0.5-tesla MRT-50A system was transferred from Japan to TAMI last year. The first 1.5-tesla Toshiba MRI system is due for delivery in the U.S. next month, Schilling said.
TAMI has been given multimodality responsibilities as well. X-ray manufacturing was shifted to the group from TAMS headquarters in Tustin, CA. Computed tomography scanners are shipped from Japan without complete user software so that engineers at TAMI can provide software that meets U.S. clinical requirements, Schilling said.
