New Mexico MEP helps Albuquerque doctor meet growing demand for healing products

To deal with her postpartum mastitis pain, Doctor of Oriental Medicine Janine Mahon created a soothing topical salve from herbs and oils. Over the course of two decades, she refined the formula for use by patients she treated at her Albuquerque, New Mexico clinic. Inspired by product requests from satisfied patients, Mahon launched Dr. Janine Mahon's Rejuvenating Breast Oil in 2019 exclusively through a high-end retailer with extensive reach. Rapid success led to commercialization of other products from the formulas she had created for patients, and Dr. Janine Mahon LLC now offers six products.

The company needed help meeting increased demand generated by rapid success in an industry that is unforgiving about supply interruptions. It was also interested in new production equipment that would help it move from small-lot manufacturing to greater efficiency as it scaled. For help they contacted New Mexico MEP, part of the MEP National Network™.

New Mexico MEP Innovation Director Scott Bryant developed a matrix that tracked manufacturing processes, equipment, materials, and information from order to delivery. The matrix also analyzed bottlenecks and wasteful procedures that could be remedied by combining, eliminating, simplifying, rearranging, and standardizing each step in the process. The project chronicled numerous opportunities to speed production while retaining product quality and integrity, and it identified additional, incremental steps that can be taken as sales increase.