P18325: Team ABC's

Problem Definition

Table of Contents

1 Project Summary
2 Use Cases
3 Project Goals and Key Deliverables
4 Customer Interviews
5 Customer Requirements (Needs)
6 Engineering Requirements (Metrics & Specifications)
7 Constraints
8 House of Quality
9 Risk Management
10 Design Review Materials
11 Plans for next phase

Project Summary

A newborn baby who has been born premature or with an illness will be kept in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, NICU, in a hospital. In order for these infants to grow and develop properly, they need to receive clean, uninfected milk from their mothers who are forced to use a breast pump. Breast pumps allow for mothers to still feed their babies and produce milk until they are able to feed directly from the nipple. However, feeding a baby who is in the NICU is not an easy task with the limited space and necessity of a clean pump at all times. Every time a mother pumps milk, she must effectively clean all parts of the pump that touched milk with hot soapy water. This process takes time away from being with their child and can be difficult in small NICU rooms. Currently there are no systems that clean every part of a breast pump without needing other resources such as a microwave.

The goals of this project are to create a system that can safely, efficiently, and effectively clean breast pump parts with the constraints found in a NICU room. The ideal system will be able to clean the parts in a fraction of the time it takes to clean them by hand as well as sterilize them and be easy to use. The expected end result will be an automated cleaning system that will clean breast pump parts given the space and resources of a typical NICU room. The design will also follow the guidelines provided by the CDC, FDA and ISO to ensure safety and ability to use the system in a hospital.