Case Study
From Process to Proof:
The Story of a Business System Built for Anything
For Cepheid, the Danaher Business System wasn't just a framework — it was the foundation that carried the company from acquisition through its most defining chapter.
Illustrating the effectiveness of DBS through the executives who relied on it and the company that proved it works.
For this story, we drew on over a decade of shared history with Cepheid — a partnership that gave us something no outside production company could bring to the table: firsthand knowledge of the Cepheid, its people, and years of carefully maintained production archives.
Internal Communications brought together key executive stakeholders from Danaher and Cepheid to align on the most impactful moments of DBS in action across Cepheid's commercial and manufacturing operations. The story would arc across five chapters — from acquisition through COVID and into the future — tracing how DBS set strategic focus, course corrected during disruption, and established a path of continuous improvement for what lies ahead.
A story of DBS in action — how Cepheid navigated its most extraordinary chapter.
An excerpt from the full 14-minute documentary.
From Script to Screen
Bringing together client and creative teams across five states in preparation for on-location filming.
Pre-production
Pre-production for this project unfolded over several weeks, bringing together our team, Cepheid, and CNHS to align on story direction, production expectations, logistics, and scheduling. Every decision — from interview subjects to facility access and shot planning — was worked through collaboratively before a single camera was packed.
Approximately two months ahead of the production, our team made a dedicated trip to Tahlequah for a location scout, touring the Cherokee Nation Outpatient Health Center and the Behavioral Health facility to assess spaces, plan interview setups, and get a clear picture of what the two-day shoot would require on the ground.
Two Days in Tahlequah
A demanding on-location schedule across two facilities, six interview setups, and the surrounding community.
Our team arrived a day ahead of the two-day production to stage equipment and prepare for a demanding schedule.
Seven interviews were conducted across six separate spaces spanning two primary facilities — the Cherokee Nation Outpatient Health Center, a 469,000-square-foot regional health campus, and the Behavioral Health facility.
Each interview was set up in a documentary style with two cameras and professional lighting, requiring a full production reset six times across both locations.
B-roll coverage extended beyond the facilities to include street-level and aerial drone footage of the surrounding Tahlequah community, captured across both production days to round out the visual story.
Post-production
With over three hours of interviews and more than 200 b-roll shots in hand, post-production became an exercise in focused storytelling.
The raw material was rich — candid conversations, on-location footage, archival photos, and a level of detail that could have easily filled twenty minutes of screen time. The editorial challenge was compression without sacrifice: distilling a story with legislative roots, clinical findings, departmental collaboration, and deeply personal motivations into a focused, accurate narrative.
Cepheid-branded graphics, a key data visualization, and archival photos were woven throughout. Four meticulously sourced music tracks were chosen by our team to maintain momentum and tone of the story.
The result is a six-minute film that honors the vision of CNHS, the technology Cepheid brought to the table, and the people whose lives it changed.
Stories
Crafted
for
Success