Performance improvement for catheter ablation assembly using an effect-solving method

Catheter ablation has become more prevalent in recent years because it has successfully modified or eliminated certain heart rhythm disorders. The device is used to reach the heart through a venous blood vessel with a size of 2.0–3.5 cm; hence, the design of the device’s motion mechanism parts must be compact and delicate. The main contribution of this manuscript is to design a new device for the assembly of catheter ablation wires, considering the effect-solving method for product development. Because the existing design has a problem in the difficulty of assembly of the small workpiece, the production process takes longer time and a more considerable workforce demand. At the beginning of the process, TRIZ theory was applied to renew the design of the wire-cutting machine by analyzing adverse factors that affect the production process and improving opportunities, including the assembly process of components of the motion control line. Afterward, the analytic network process (ANP) method was adopted to select the best conceptual design with the lowest weight in some parameters. According to the ANP result, the best criteria applied by the remaining lowest score are design difficulty, process difficulty, cost demand, equipment cost, and manufacturing cost. Therefore, scenario 3 was chosen as the best scenario with scores of 0.9, 0.9, 0.45, 0.3, and 0.35, respectively. Finally, it is conducted by adding an axis function with an upper and lower cover. Lastly, after applying the new device according to the analysis of the effect-solving method, it affected the percentage of efficiency of assembly cycle time, equipment demand, and labor by 55, 57, and 57%, respectively.