Read the Conversation
Meeting highlights:
- A Decade of Growth: Philips has grown its Costa Rica operations from 500 to over 2,800 employees in the past decade, becoming a multi-modality site shipping more than 12 million units annually.
- R&D and Vertical Integration: The company is investing in a dedicated R&D lab, testing equipment, and training centers to support innovation and operational self-sufficiency.
- Global Hub Functions: Costa Rica is emerging as a regional hub for regulatory affairs, IT, and ERP support within Philips’ global structure.
- Vision and Reflections: The site plays a key role in global healthcare, demonstrating resilience, flexibility, and innovation, especially during the pandemic.
- Forward-Looking Perspective: Continued success depends on strengthening talent development, infrastructure, and the country’s competitiveness to attract future investment.
EF: Could you elaborate on Philips' presence in Costa Rica and your current priorities?
MB: I have been with Philips for about 8 years now. My previous role was as the Site Manager for the CR site. Recently, my role has expanded. I am now also responsible for other manufacturing sites in the US that focus on image-guided therapy. These include factories in Colorado Springs, Plymouth, Minnesota, and Fremont, California. It has been a very interesting journey so far, especially with all the changes Philips has gone through over the past five to seven years. As I mentioned earlier, Philips started operations in Costa Rica around 10 years ago after acquiring Volcano. Since then, we have seen major growth and significant investment in the country. Back then, we had about 500 to 600 employees. Today, we employ around 2,800 people, which is about five times more than when we started. We have also grown from being focused on just one business to covering multiple business areas under one roof. In Costa Rica, we now manufacture devices for image-guided therapy, sleep and respiratory care, and hospital patient monitoring. We ship over 12 million units per year from this site, making it one of Philips’ largest medical device manufacturing centers in the world. That shows the level of trust placed in the work done here.
Looking ahead, Costa Rica has really become a center of excellence for Philips manufacturing. We plan to expand our capabilities to other factories by sharing best practices and talent. At the same time, we are preparing for new product transfers right here in Costa Rica. Our focus moving forward is to keep building a culture of operational excellence, innovation, and strong attention to patient needs. We also want to make sure the progress we have made here can benefit our other global locations.
EF: How do you build a patient-focused culture in the manufacturing part of the business?
MB: In manufacturing, it is easy to lose sight of the end customer. Most people are focused on hitting daily production targets, so that the bigger purpose can get lost. Over the last couple of years, we have worked hard to shift that mindset and connect our operations more directly to patients. One big change we made is how we report our results. Instead of just saying how many units we produced, we talk about how many lives we helped save each day. And instead of reporting back lock orders in dollar amounts, we refer to them as the number of patients we have not served yet. This simple shift in language has had a powerful impact on how people think about their work.
Patients come to visit us. Some join our town halls, along with doctors and distributors, to share their stories. We have even tracked specific devices from our production lines to the patients who used them, giving our team the chance to meet the people they helped. It is an emotional and meaningful experience for both sides. What is more, we discovered that some of our own employees or their family members have used Philips products. For example, our HR manager’s baby had to use one of our sensors at a local hospital in Costa Rica. She later shared her story with the team and even brought her child to visit the factory. Her photo is now part of our gallery at the main entrance. All of this helps our team understand that each unit they build could mean saving a life. That connection to our purpose, improving and saving lives, is not just a slogan. It is something we truly believe and live by every day.
EF: What key efficiency lessons from Philips Costa Rica could be applied across the company or industry?
MB: In Costa Rica, we have been working on building a culture of continuous improvement for quite a while. It is really a long-term effort to change how we run the business. Over the past few years, our focus has been on promoting servant leadership, leading with humility, and showing respect for each person on the team. We believe that the right behaviors lead to the right results, and that is how we aim to achieve lasting success.
Our goal is not just to hit short-term targets but to create sustainable outcomes. So, we are putting a lot of effort into shaping a strong culture, one where systems and structures support the behaviors we want to see. This is not just for our site in Costa Rica; we are also sharing and promoting this approach with other Philips sites. We do not see tools or models as the end goal. They are just means to reach a higher level of operational excellence. We are not chasing awards, but rather focusing on what truly matters, how we work, how we think, and how we continuously get better. That said, we were proud to receive a National Award for Operational Excellence two years ago from the Costa Rican Chamber of Industries. It was a valuable learning experience, and it helped us reflect on what we had achieved and where we could improve. Now, we are setting even higher standards and always looking for ways to stretch ourselves and grow further in operational excellence.
EF: How have you adapted operations to ensure continuity amid supply chain disruptions, and what innovations have been most effective?
MB: In this environment, the key is to stay flexible and adaptable. For us on the manufacturing side, that means staying closely connected to what is happening in the market, working hand-in-hand with sales and marketing, and using tools like sales and operations reviews to stay aligned. Since our job is to make products, we have built systems internally that help us respond quickly when demand changes, whether it goes up or down. In the past, it might have taken us three to six months to get someone fully trained. Now, thanks to new training labs and better training methods, we can prepare people in just a few weeks. We have also built strong relationships with other Philips manufacturing sites and even with external companies in the region that use similar suppliers. This helps us act fast when there is a shortage or a supply chain issue. We have partnered with suppliers, too, helping them improve through lean and operational efficiency programs, so they are better prepared for any disruptions. It is about teamwork. We are always looking beyond our own walls to see what is coming and make sure we are ready to respond effectively.
EF: Could you elaborate on the importance of Philips' operations in Costa Rica?
MB: It has really been a journey over the past 10 years. We are not just producing life-saving medical devices; we are also supporting and developing talent, which is a big win for Costa Rica. Philips Costa Rica has earned a strong reputation as a hub of excellence. We are known for our high standards in operational performance, sustainability, health and safety, and digital innovation. Thanks to our results, we have actually been able to start new initiatives here that later get adopted by other Philips sites or even by Philips at a global level. We often ask what more we can do or how we can do things differently. Many successful programs that started in Costa Rica have been scaled across the company worldwide. And now, we are seeing people from our team here stepping into leadership roles in places like the Netherlands, the US, and other regions. Personally, I have also had the chance to lead other factories outside Costa Rica, which shows the impact and value of the work being done here. It proves that what our team is building not only works locally but can help shape operations across the globe.
EF: How do you position Philips in Costa Rica, and what differentiates it from other players?
MB: We are proud to be part of a large company like Philips, which has more than 130 years of history built on innovation. You can see that spirit of innovation every day, even in our manufacturing operations.
Another big focus for us is sustainability. At Philips, we believe that efficiency, productivity, and sustainability must go hand in hand; you cannot choose just one. What makes our approach special, especially here in Costa Rica, is how committed we are to using renewable resources, managing materials in a circular way, and reducing our carbon footprint, energy use, and water consumption. In my past experience, I have not seen many companies place this much importance on sustainability, so it is definitely something that sets Philips apart. We have also built a strong culture of servant leadership. That means leading with humility, showing respect for people, and shaping a positive workplace culture by focusing on behavior. We believe we are not just here to run operations, but to create better opportunities for the people who work with us. In fact, our internal promotion rates are quite high, around 70% in the CR factory. Many of our employees have grown significantly in their careers. For example, one woman started as a line operator, moved up to line leader, and then became a supervisor. With support from the company, she finished her college degree and is now working as an engineer at our facility in Plymouth, USA. Stories like that show the kind of mindset we have at Philips. We believe in developing our people, and that commitment to internal growth is one of the things that truly makes us stand out.
EF: How do you see the new R&D laboratory in Costa Rica evolving, and what role will it play in Philips' future?
MB: Over the past few years, we have gone through several phases of expansion. We have added new business units like Sleep and Respiratory Care and Hospital Patient Monitoring, which have significantly increased our site's size and capabilities. Alongside that growth, we have also been investing in building up new capabilities and improving how the site operates. For example, we created a failure analysis lab where any product complaints or performance issues from the market are sent back to us for investigation. This allows us to quickly identify and solve problems directly on site.
We have also built R&D labs to support our daily operations. These labs work closely with other Philips R&D sites. In addition, we have developed specialized testing equipment labs here. That means all the testing tools we need for manufacturing are designed and built right in Costa Rica. We have set up training centers too, helping us grow and develop talent locally. More recently, Costa Rica has started to become a hub for other Philips functions as well. For instance, we now have a regional hub here for regulatory affairs across Latin America. We also offer IT and ERP support services to other Philips sites from Costa Rica. Right now, I am managing the challenge of balancing all these growing activities. But overall, the outlook is very positive. There is a lot of interest from different areas of the business to set up operations here, and we are constantly discussing what else can be added. Costa Rica is becoming a key location for Philips, not just in manufacturing, but across several other areas too.
EF: What would you say in a celebratory message on reaching the 10-year milestone?
MB: I would just say I feel incredibly grateful and proud of what Costa Rica has achieved. It is a small country, but it is making a big impact globally. The talent here and this operation have really contributed to improving healthcare around the world. Every year, this site helps impact more than 12 million lives. We have shown that this facility can be reliable, flexible, and agile, even during tough times like the pandemic. In fact, we grew significantly during that period by taking on new opportunities. I am especially proud of how this site has grown from something small into a major influence within Philips. We are setting the standard in areas like operational excellence, social responsibility, sustainability, and innovation.
We are operating in a very competitive environment, so it is important for us to stay aware of that and keep it in mind at all times. As a country and as a company, we need to make sure Costa Rica remains an attractive and competitive place for global investment. To do that, we need to continue developing local talent, create better benefits and conditions for investors, and also work on improving national infrastructure.
