The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has requirements for medical device manufacturers to establish and maintain a quality system for their medical device(s). The requirement for a quality system does not necessarily introduce new concepts, but applies existing quality concepts to design, development, manufacturing, distribution and use of medical devices. Within the larger quality system requirement, a methodology to control device design and development of medical devices is required. This set of sub requirements is known as Design Controls. In this paper, the history and evolution of quality systems and their application to medical devices will be covered. A Quality tool that could be well applied to the specific area of design controls, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), is a focus of this paper.
The US Food and Drug Administration has finalized new guidance clarifying how sponsors and requestors can formally ...
