Boston Scientific, Edwards Lifesciences, Baxter Used CMMI To Measure Their Manufacturing Capability. Here's What They Said About The Experience

Quality, compliance and regulatory officials at the three large device firms – along with their peers at Steris and CVRx – open up about appraisals conducted at their facilities under a voluntary US FDA pilot program that uses Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) to measure the capability and maturity of their manufacturing sites. Along with providing a step-by-step walk-through of the assessments, the officials explain how a CMMI appraisal is nothing like a typical regulatory audit. They also talk about the types of benefits they're seeing (hint: cost-savings, and better manufacturing capability and quality), and how they network via monthly conference calls linked to the pilot. Also: Baxter Healthcare explains why it made its own maturity model, and how it plans to eventually replace the homemade tool with CMMI at all its facilities. The third of a multi-part Medtech Insight feature series on the appraisal of manufacturing capability and maturity, and what it means for the medical device industry.