Supplier Management for Medical Device Manufacturers

Do you want to understand how to do efficient and effective internal and supplier audits that meet all the requirements of your external auditors, but also add value to your company? Are you confused by all the requirements and guidance documents for medical device quality management systems and are tired of wading through all the regulatory language they contain. This course is for those who will do internal or supplier audits, manage an audit process for these or other company audits. This course will provide you with an easy to understand presentation on the auditing process as well as the requirements you will need to audit under ISO 13485 and the FDA Quality System Regulation (cGMP)

Both FDA Quality System Regulation (QSR) and ISO 13485 require that companies do internal audits. However, because the FDA does not look at the content of internal audits, some companies do not get feedback on the true effectiveness of their internal audit system from the FDA during FDA Inspections. ISO 13485 auditors do look at internal audits, but are most concerned that you define a process that meets the requirements of the standard and are following your process. Both require that you define Auditor training is required, but this sometimes just requires reading the company's procedure, although most external auditors will look for more than this.

Do you need to train new auditors for yours medical device quality management system or to audit your suppliers? Or do you need to improve the training of your internal and supplier auditors so that they add value to these audits? If you need to do either of these, this seminar will provide this training. In addition to auditing skills and hands-on auditing exercises, this seminar will provide an overview of the requirements for Quality Management Systems (QMS) for both the FDA and ISO 13485, because auditors need to understand the requirements for the audits they conduct. This seminar will also cover the best practices for creating and managing a value-added auditing process that will meet both company business needs and regulatory requirements

In this seminar you will review all the quality management system requirements of FDA and ISO 13485 and then learn how to set up and manage an audit system that complies with these requirements, yet is risk-based so that your company makes the most efficient use of auditing resources for both internal and supplier audits. The seminar will include interactive exercises to reinforce the fundamentals of conducting and documenting quality system audits. Auditing principles taught in this seminar will be based on ISO 19011:2011 Guidelines for auditing management systems.

Why should you attend?

Since FDA regulations do not allow them to audit your suppliers unless they make finished medical devices, they require that you have sufficient control over them. But from time to time the FDA makes a reinterpretation of what this means. This happened within the last f 5 years, so if you supplier management program is older than that, you need to make major changes in you supplier management program. This is why the Good Manufacturing Practice (aka Quality System Regulations) is called cGMP. The C stands for current, meaning what the FDA considers the current state of the art in the areas they regulate. Also European Notified Bodies also periodically update their expectations, and for suppliers this happened with the publication of a guidance document by the Notified Body Operations Group (NBOG).

This seminar will go into the details of the NBOG supplier guidance document and a GHTF (Global Harmonization Task Force) guidance that describes the current FDA expectation on supplier management.

One of the major things introduced in these guidance document, is the concept of Risk, and the use of identified risks as part of the evaluation and monitoring of suppliers.

This seminar will review requirements and expectation of the FDA and European Notified Bodies for supplier management, and then how to incorporate these into your own supplier management process.

 Areas Covered in the Session:

• Understand FDA QSR and ISO 13485 requirements for supplier management
• Creating a Risk-based Multi-tier supplier classification system
• Understand when suppliers have to register and list with the FDA
• Defining and using supplier Metrics
• Explain the link between design control and purchasing data
• Develop an risk-based supplier management process
• Incorporating supplier regulatory and safety risk
• Incorporating supplier business risk
• Create supplier measurement and monitoring systems
• Understand the how to develop and implement supplier controls
• Create a risk based Value-added system for supplier audits
• How to prepare yourself and your contract manufacturer for unannounced audits from your Notified body
• Creating acceptance criteria and understand how that fits into your supplier control process

 Who will benefit:

• Quality Managers
• Quality Engineers
• Audit Managers
• Supplier Engineers
• Internal quality auditors
• Supplier auditors
• Quality associates
• Quality Specialists
• Regulatory Compliance Managers