Create a “Closed Loop” to Ensure Quality

Self-audits document issues like food safety, cleaning practice, pest control, maintenance for sanitation and operational practice. The inspection team must also determine what corrective actions are needed and what preventive actions (short term and long term) are required so the problem doesn’t recur.

Validation

Getting the findings from self-audits back to the sanitation team to act on is important. Sanitation can then be proactive in adjusting the SSOPs, modifying scheduling, training staff or attempting to get more downtime.

Sanitation should do periodic long-term review of self-audits and third-party audits to look for repeats in the findings in a given area. Tracking and correcting trends before they become major issues proves the validation cycle is functioning.

QA should also review self-audits, looking for inspection points to add as well as to follow up on inspection findings. Comparing the results of self-audits and third-party audits can be a useful reality check.

Sanitation, auditing and validation create a closed loop. Together, they help plants create an ever-improving sanitation department. It helps QA communicate better with sanitation. It provides a method for follow-up on issues found. The documentation of staffing helps the front office better understand sanitation budgeting requirements. The forecast times along with task intervals help sanitation work with production for downtime needs. These systems can be set up either manually or with computer-based tools.

Robert Burgh, president of Nexcor Inc. (Suwanee, Ga.), can be reached at 770-831-9191 or Robert_Burgh/[email protected].