Top 5 Reasons Medical Device Projects Succeed

Medical Device Projects Can Be Successful During COVID-19

1) Make Sure User Needs are Complete and Stakeholder Approved

• All successful projects begin with the user in mind
• Involved stakeholders keep everyone focused on the end user

2) Don’t ‘short-change’ Risk Management

• Objective: how to design quality & safety into a medical device product
• There are myriad regulations and directives
  • EN ISO 14971:2012
  • ISO 13485
  • QSR – 21 CFR 820.30
  • MDD 93/42/EEC
  • ANSI/AAMI/IEC/EN 60601-1-2:2014
  • IMDRF
• When should you perform Risk Management?
  • Start at the project beginning and continue throughout
    • During the initial design of the product, to assure that potential hazards and defects are recognized and designed out
    • With each design modification, to revisit the original assumptions and to assure that any changes “do no harm” to the original product
    • With each production process change, to ensure that improvements intended by new concepts (lean mfg, etc) are completely thought through prior to implementing them
    • After each product recall. Yes, problems occur, even with the most robustly designed products, leading to recalls to remove unsafe products from users hands. When these events occur, a smart company will revisit the risk analysis file to critique whether such hazards may have been foreseen with a rigorous and objective risk management effort
  • How do you Perform Risk Management?
    • There are myriad approaches but the following should suite more organizations
      • Fault tree analysis (FTA), a top-down approach
      • Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) and failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA), both bottom-up approaches
    • Modified versions of these methods are acceptable according to the standard
    • A modified FMECA that employs a three-tiered quantitative scoring system for estimation of hazards and risks for each hazard works best (historically)
    • It’s important to find the optimal approach that best fits your organization
  • Find a knowledgeable, experienced partner to support (and guide) your organization’s process improvement efforts

3) Common Sense QMS and Related Processes

• Do you know the difference between compliance and intent?
• This critical difference will make or break your project…so it’s important this is fully understood
• Is your Quality Management System ‘harmonized’ across your organization?
• Schedule a call with one of our experts; let’s review your processes to capture usable feedback with recommendations
  • The best time to start is now

4) Complete Traceability maintained throughout the Product Lifecycle

• Critical to avoid missteps and maintain allegiance to your quality goals
• We can help you improve your processes, in order to directly improve product quality and shrink time-to-market.
  • The two go hand-in-hand

5) Process Improvements driven by Cost-of-Quality Metrics

• Knowing the costs – across the board – of each activity/task/step will allow you to significantly reduce cost of operation, eliminate costly mistakes (rework), and dramatically improve customer satisfaction with your products

Call for a Free Consultation:

Kelly Powell

VP of Sales

kelly.powell@advantu.com

858.275.2106