Improvement of catheter quality inspection process

Quality inspection is very often one of the most important stages of the production process, although it does not create any added value. Therefore, optimization of the related number of activities is of crucial importance. However, reduction should not be made arbitrarily, but preceded and documented by appropriate research. The article describes a study aimed at reducing the high cost of quality inspection as part of the manufacturing process of a diagnostic catheter at a medical company. The product is used for blood pressure monitoring and blood sampling by the Seldinger technique. A critical quality feature for the catheter is air/water tightness. Following a thorough analysis, some control points were eliminated, and others were improved. The resulting conclusion is that detection of defective components is the most beneficial for this specific production process if carried out during the 100 percent final quality inspection. The finding is based on the fact that the cost of producing the final device with a defective component is lower than a quality inspection run directly after each operation. The authors also managed to decrease the sample size for control charts used to supervise the adhesive connection strength.