by Nicolle Cannon

Most manufacturers of medical devices depend on numerous suppliers to provide components, assemblies, design services, sterilization and more. Manufacturers are required to audit key suppliers periodically to ensure compliance with their quality agreements.

For some suppliers, this could mean hosting over a hundred audits per year, which represents a significant cost in time and personnel. To add to that, suppliers will be working in 2021 to reduce exposure to employees from outside visitors such as auditors as restrictions are gradually lifted.

The disruption of 2020 has propelled supplier auditing forward in new ways, such as an increase in remote auditing. Medtech suppliers are also now finding the concept of the shared audit to be of significant value in working down the backlog of audit requests while reducing exposure in the plant. Read more: https://bit.ly/3dYjxP9