INSTRUMENT TRACEABILITY: OPTIMISATION OF DATAMATRIX READERS BY AN EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN.

Implementing traceability at instrument's individual level showed that Datamatrix readers were unable to read the Data Matrix barcodes effectively. This led to slow down medical procedure trays repackaging's stage and a great reluctance from operators to continue the Datamatrix process deployment. To improve reader performance, an experimental design was developed using the Taguchi method. This experimental design made possible, in a limited number of trials, to identify influencing parameters and their optimal settings. The reading time of instruments was reduced by 81% while using the leanest possible production resources. Thanks to this improvement, the Sterilisation department team has been able to continue ramping up Individual Level Instrument traceability with greater efficiency and increased satisfaction of the medical staff.