Stop Doing This to Improve Your Device Manufacturing Process: Part 1

Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series.  The manufacturing world is full of practices to follow to improve manufacturing processes and reduce associated costs. These practices include, but are not limited to: minimizing the eight wastes of Lean, recognizing and eliminating non-value added work, implementing design for manufacturing and assembly, and using statistical process control (SPC). Unfortunately, as we continually add practices to our tool kit we lose track of the bigger picture. This occurs personally and organizationally, driven by the daily crush of getting stuff done. We do not think holistically about the organization, and end up losing focus on the important things because we try to do too much.  This raises the question: what should we stop doing to improve our manufacturing processes? Stop Separating Development from Manufacturing Most of the problematic issues that arise in manufacturing (high cost of goods, high scrap rate, slow manufacturing throughput, high training costs, high costs of inspection, etc.) are created during the design process. It is, not surprisingly, during the design process that important design decisions are made. These decisions include: the product’s general design complexity and manufacturability, specifications on components and subassemblies and their sourcing options, and the specifications and tolerances on the manufactured product. Hear more from Cushing Hamlen during his session, "Improving Process Control to...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: MD & M Minneapolis Regulatory and Compliance Source Type: news