As medical device organizations grow, so does the complexity of managing Design Control documentation.
For Teams overseeing not just a handful of active projects, but up to hundreds of completed, legacy, or maintenance phase products across multiple product families, and generations of devices, it also introduces a practical challenge: keeping the management of large Design Control project sets fast, organized, and easy to navigate.
That is why we introduce a new capability in our Design Control software: Project Archiving.
This new feature is designed to help organizations manage extensive project portfolios more efficiently while maintaining a seamless user experience. With just a few clicks, teams can archive inactive projects, reduce clutter, improve overall system responsiveness, and still retain immediate access whenever historical information is needed.
Most importantly, the feature was designed around usability. Users do not need to understand technical database concepts or perform complicated administrative tasks. Archiving simply becomes a natural part of maintaining a healthy and scalable Design Control environment.
The Challenge of Growing Project Portfolios
For medical device companies, Design Control data accumulates over years or even decades as a natural consequence of with their products extended life cycles. Products evolve, new versions are released, acquisitions bring additional documentation into the system, and regulatory requirements demand that historical records remain available long after a product is no longer actively developed.
Over time, organizations may end up managing hundreds of Design Control projects. Even when many of these projects are no longer actively edited, they remain part of the overall system landscape.
As the number of projects grows, users can experience several common frustrations:
- Longer loading times
- Reduced efficiency when locating active projects
- Performance impacts when upgrading large project sets
These challenges are especially relevant for organizations scaling their Design Control processes globally or centralizing documentation across departments and product lines.
The new Project Archiving feature directly addresses these issues.
What Is Project Archiving?
Project Archiving allows users to mark Design Control projects as archived when they are no longer actively worked on.
Archived projects remain visible in the system and can still be accessed whenever needed, but they are handled differently behind the scenes to improve overall performance and scalability.
From the user perspective, the process is intentionally simple:
- Select a project
- Click the archive action
- The project is marked as archived
- The project remains visible with an “Archived” indication
That’s it.
No exporting. No manual file management. No complicated IT involvement.
The project continues to exist within the system and remains fully retrievable whenever required.
Archived Does Not Mean Inaccessible
In regulated industries such as medical devices, historical documentation remains critically important.
Organizations must maintain access to prior Design History Files, legacy documentation, and archived development records for audits, inspections, post market activities, and product lifecycle management.
For this reason, Project Archiving was designed to preserve accessibility at all times.
Archived projects remain listed within the application and can be reopened whenever needed.
If a user selects an archived project, the system automatically restores access and loads the project seamlessly. There is no manual recovery process and no need to contact an administrator and users benefit from a cleaner active environment without sacrificing access to critical historical information.
Scale with Aligned Elements - Supporting Growing Organizations
As medical device organizations expand, scalability becomes increasingly important. Processes that work well with a small number of projects can become difficult to manage across hundreds of active and historical projects.
Project Archiving introduces a practical lifecycle management approach by separating active and inactive work while preserving full historical access. This is particularly beneficial for enterprise environments, long product lifecycles, and organizations managing extensive legacy portfolios.
Looking Ahead
Designed to be effortless for end users and improve overall system responsiveness by reducing the active workload at certain points, Project Archiving is another step toward helping medical device organizations manage growing Design Control environments more effectively.
The feature delivers a simpler, cleaner, and more scalable user experience while keeping historical projects fully accessible whenever needed.
