MEDICAL DEVICES
How MedSpares put medical device parts online, searchable by part number
MedSpares had more medical diagnostic parts coming in than it could sell offline. Acro built its first online store around the two things that mattered most: finding the exact part and keeping available stock listed.
Project highlights
In medical parts, a part that almost fits is the wrong part.
When buyers know the part number they need, your store has to find it. When they can’t find a part number or trust the stock listing, they may have to call. You may know the signs:
- Buyers call to ask if you have a part number
- A product name doesn’t say which machine a part fits
- Parts sit on the shelf before anyone lists them
- A part you sold yesterday still shows as available
- Your team types in parts one at a time
- Some parts need a price check before you can sell them
MedSpares faced both problems at once: identifying machine-specific parts and keeping a changing catalogue up to date.
Background
More parts coming in than the business could sell
MedSpares is a medical equipment supply company in Vancouver, BC, Canada. It sells and delivers medical diagnostic products.
Before Acro, MedSpares sold entirely offline. It had no website, and parts were coming in faster than it could sell them. MedSpares asked Acro for an online store that could take on more orders and get them out the door faster.
Objective
Find the exact part & list only what’s on the shelf
Discovery set two requirements: precise part identification, and a manageable way to publish stock.
Parts are built for specific machines, so buyers identify them by part number. A basic keyword search couldn’t reliably narrow results by part number and model. Search had to read product titles, SKUs (stock codes) and model numbers too.
For stock, MedSpares wanted the store to show only parts on hand, so nobody ordered a part that was gone. Its technicians needed a simple way to list parts as they took machines apart.
Solution
Search tuned to part & model numbers
Acro built search around the numbers buyers used to identify parts. Work began in May 2016 on Drupal Commerce, with Apache Solr, a dedicated search engine, behind the search box. Acro chose which product details Solr searched and how much each one counted: part numbers, model numbers, SKUs and titles.
The search box still asks for a “Keyword, Part Number or Model”. Acro added filters to narrow the results, including New Arrival and Special Offer. Product pages got a Specifications tab with details like manufacturer and part type.
- Search API: the Drupal module that connects a store to a search engine like Solr.
The simpler path: an Excel import instead of a new stock-entry system
Acro built the stock import around spreadsheets instead of developing separate software for bulk entry. That avoided developing separate logic for entering large numbers of products. Technicians listed parts in Excel as they took machines apart, and the importer took product records, images, descriptions and versions from the file. In 2016, Acro extended the Commerce XLS Importer module so an upload could also update products and stock counts. In December 2016, Acro added a rule to disable zero-stock products when checkout completed.
- Commerce XLS Importer: a Drupal Commerce module that imports and exports products from Excel (XLSX) files.
Outcome
Part pricing, warehouse locations & checkout built into the store
On January 17, 2017, Acro merged the build and configured automated deployment to the live site. By then it had built a Canadian and US dollar currency selector and a checkout without a shipping step. Acro kept building on the store and moved it to Google Cloud in February 2025.
For parts without a set price, Acro added “Price on Application” in 2017. In 2018, staff got bay and box fields to record where a part sits, plus invoice numbers and SKUs in the orders list. In 2019, Acro built a warranty buyers could add to a part, priced as a percentage of it. It also added emailed PDF receipts and PayPal Express Checkout.
Project features