After years of struggling with this, she took the “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em approach” and left mechanical engineering to make her mark on the world of quality management systems. She set out in this new role to create quality systems that work for your product, your engineering team, as well as the business.

“I talk to CTOs every day”, Cannon said. “And I say ‘what were things that didn’t work for you?’ There’s nothing worse than killing a concept based on fear.”

Cannon believes Quality is just good scientific process, along with design controls. “If you’re going to purchase somebody’s ideas, you want to make sure you have those ideas in a way that’s both documented but also proven out at some level and in a record. That’s the value.”

This approach has led Cannon Quality Group to 11 years of growth by lowering the cost of innovation for the Medtech industry. The company, now numbering 25 employees, specializes in right-sized quality solutions, streamlining overly burdensome systems, and reducing time to market.

In addition, the company has pioneered the concept of consolidated supplier audits, which saves clients time and money compared to auditing the supplier themselves, and increases efficiency for suppliers by auditing one time on behalf of up to 15-20 clients. It is the Audit Efficiency Program.