The hearing aid has become a much more complex product to manufacture.
Once focused primarily on amplifying sound, the devices increasingly incorporate artificial intelligence, health tracking and connectivity—changes that are pushing manufacturers to rethink not only what they make, but how they make it.
At Starkey, an Eden Prairie, Minnesota-based hearing aid manufacturer, that has meant investing in automation, expanding and reorganizing its global production and distribution footprint and exploring how AI could improve quality and scalability on the factory floor.
President and CEO Brandon Sawalich, who joined Starkey as a 19-year-old intern and has spent more than three decades with the company, spoke with Chief Executive about how its manufacturing operations are evolving alongside its products, where the company is putting automation to work and what comes next.
What has your career journey been at Starkey?
I began my career at Starkey in 1994 with a summer internship at the age of 19. After my first year of college, I got a summer job in the hearing aid repair department and loved it. I enjoyed learning about the industry and felt a sense of responsibility that was so exciting.
I decided to take a gap year and work at Starkey full-time. Today, almost 32 gap years later, I’ve worked in virtually every corner of the business, learning all aspects of the hearing industry, including what patients and hearing professionals expect from the technology Starkey creates.
I was named president of Starkey in 2017 and CEO in 2020. I’m honored to lead a global team of more than 5,000 employees, with facilities in over 29 countries, driving the strategic direction of Starkey and working closely with the executive team and other leaders throughout the organization to support the company’s mission and values.
I’m focused on forward-thinking leadership and am committed to continuous innovation of the science, design and production of hearing aids, while providing consumers with the best sound quality and advanced technology available.
How does Starkey continue to innovate?
As the first adopter of advanced AI in hearing technologies, Starkey is leading the hearing industry. We strive to be the best because when people think of the best in hearing healthcare and technology, we want them to think of Starkey.
We’ve turned hearing aids from need-to-wear into want-to-wear devices with state-of-the-art technology alongside multi-functional health tracking while giving people “superhuman” hearing. Our hearing technology allows patients to track physical and cognitive health, detect falls and alert loved ones, translate hundreds of languages, allow connections to multiple devices and more.
We also stick to the basics of what patients care about, which is sound quality, battery life and comfort. Our team has developed sleek, discreet, nearly invisible and ergonomic hearing technology that is durable and comfortable for all-day wear.
How has manufacturing hearing technology evolved over time?
Today’s hearing technology isn’t the hearing aids your grandparents wore. Starkey created a global research and leadership team with top talent and expertise in AI technology. The advanced research arm of this team focuses on developing and working on technology that won’t be available or often even possible for many years.
While the engineering teams are working on innovations that will be released in the next one to three years, the advanced development team stays ahead of the game to develop technology so advanced that it has to be earmarked on the product roadmap well into the future to allow science to catch up and make the technology possible. Manufacturing hearing technology will continue to evolve.
What is Starkey’s strategy for growth?
Starkey is legacy built and future driven. Our legacy as a global leader in hearing technology has provided us with a foundation of knowledge and wisdom for serving our customers better than anyone else. We know what’s best for the patient and this industry.
In recent years, we have made many investments in automation, especially in focus-areas of quality and distribution.Two large-scale international projects have also optimized our ability to increase quality and scalability of production output to support our customers across both Europe and Asia.
We opened a new distribution center to better support our expanding customer base in Europe. The new European distribution center allowed us to significantly simplify our supply chain across Europe, while maintaining the level of quality and service excellence our customers have come to expect from Starkey.
More recently, we moved a major manufacturing site to a new facility in under 60 hours with absolutely no business disruption. Our new APAC facility will support customer channels throughout Asia and the Pacific regions.
This represents our ongoing pursuit of global operational excellence as we continue to build an even more agile, resilient and customer-centric global manufacturing network that delivers innovative hearing technologies faster and more reliably to those who need them.
As for future projects, our upcoming roadmap includes the introduction of more AI technology in our manufacturing processes with the same goals of increasing quality and scalability of production output to better serve our customers and their patients.
