The design and manufacture of perinatal equipment for the developing countries

Publisher Summary This chapter elaborates the design and manufacture of perinatal equipment for the developing countries. The features of the product were analyzed and separated them into three categories: essential, desirable, and inessential. Examples of the first were compliance with the basic criteria of electrical safety, fan fail detection, and limitation of maximum temperature; the examples of the second were a withdrawable and tiltable baby tray, independent detection of temperature, and humidification; and the example of the third were multi-access canopy, electronic temperature display and control from a skin temperature sensor. Having ranked the features, a cost was estimated for each. It is found that since production volumes of incubators are low when compared to those of a typical domestic product or a medical disposable, the option of manufacturing in a separate factory located in a part of the world where factory overheads are low, was not available. Consequently, the costing assumed that the same quality standards would apply to the new product as to any other in the Vickers Medical range. Key components such as the motor, fan, heater and inner body were common to both which resulted in a thermal and noise level performance which would have been acceptable anywhere in the world.