Safety & Quality Compliance in the Cloud

Traditional Manual System:

• Line supervisor has SOP to calibrate metal detectors on his/her lines by 4:55 a.m. daily prior to materials coming down the line.
• Today, this supervisor calls in sick at last minute; another supervisor is balancing managing multiple lines, and the metal detector SOP “slips through the cracks.”
• At noon, the plant manager, reviewing the morning’s operations forms, notices the SOP was missed; now all cookies previously packaged must be taken out of the bags and re-run through the metal detectors after proper calibration.
• The packaging materials are wasted and 30 percent of the cookies are broken in the process; KPIs for the day are now off, inventory has to be replaced, and overtime must be paid to ship to the customer on time.

Cloud-Based Mobile Empowered System:

• At 4:40 a.m., all line supervisors receive alert on their mobile tablets with notification that the auto-scheduled SOP is due to be completed by 4:55 a.m.
• At 4:55 a.m., the plant manager and appropriate production supervisor receive Non-Compliance Report (NCR) alerts that the calibration was not entered for a particular line.
• At 5:02 a.m., the production supervisor electronically completes the NCR-CAPA; auto-notification also sent to plant manager that the issue has been successfully resolved.
• The electronic records of the auto-scheduled SOP, the alert, the issuance of the corrective action and the completion of the task are time/date stamped and now part of the permanent record for audit readiness and continuous improvement.
• The problem is corrected before the line start-up, avoiding waste and rework, thereby reducing cost of quality and helping the plant stay within its daily KPIs.

The bottom line? Cloud-based FSQA technologies save time, save money, and create operational efficiencies that harmonize and improve food safety and quality.

Levin is the senior vice president of marketing and a co-founder of SafetyChain Software. Reach her at [email protected].