Practical directions for dilution of cleaning chemicals

Hello food safety hivemind.

 

I am updating cleaning directions/checklists for our production areas.

 

One of the things that has prompted these updates is the fact that there is great inconsistency in the way that operators follow dilution instructions for the various cleaning chemicals, etc.

 

 

For example - the manufacturer instructions directions for use instruct a dilution of one part chemical solution to 100 parts water.

 

The operators in area 'A' are used to making simple mathematical calculations and so fill their 20 litre bucket to the halfway mark and measure out 100ml of cleaning solution.

 

Operators in area 'B' are not used to making calculations - they half fill the same bucket but put in 'a few glugs' of cleaning solution.

 

 

Obviously we want to standardise things and get everybody using cleaning chemicals as directed - the obvious option for us to correct these bad practices is to issue measuring jugs and train people up in making the proper calculations.

 

However, a manager has challenged this by asking me to find an easier, more practical solution that would mean operators wouldn't have to make calculation (and therefore errors in orders of magnitude, etc.)

 

The only method I can think of to avoid calculations (without installing dosing equipment) is to provide a 'ready reckoner' or something similar, where they can just retrieve the required info from a table.

 

Seems like this would be just as problematic as the first option - does anybody have any other suggestions? 

 

Thx

 

 

Many chemical companies provide dispensers that automatically dilute.  I would check with your provider.  I have found this true with both large and small companies. 

@Snookie - thanks, but as stated in my original post I was already aware of this option. Long to intermediate term this is the solution we will be exploring, but we've established that our current provider can't offer this.

 

I was specifically looking for other options in the short-term.

I suppose you could always buy inexpensive capped bottles, label them and measure out the correct amounts of each chemical for them with basic instructions on the bottle "Add to x amount of water" ... all in all these sound like pretty awful solutions either way.

Dear chrisbird,

 

Yr difficulty seems to be "comprehension" at the operator step for the small liquid volume.

One option is similar to previous post but use QA to prefill a batch of the appropriate small volumes for storage at the usage location.  However the logistical part tends to limit the approach to a few clearly separable items, either via colour/letters/numbers whatever. So would depend on yr actual setup.

 

Rgds / Charles.C

This may not seem useful but the manager needs to take some responsibility for his staff and train them in the correct use of chemicals. Anyone using chemicals should have had some sort of basic chemical training and surely it's not that difficult to say for half a bucket of water you need half a cap of chemical, for a full one, one cap? Your ready reckoner idea seems the simplest to me and the manager sounds like he has no faith in his team which if they are splashing chemicals around has got to be a worry! Without an automatic doser you are on the right track. But I'd look at your training ASAP your health and safety people should be worried if someone mixes the chemicals up or uses them neat you are in serious trouble. Your chemical provider should give you free training on this so it shouldn't take any time away from you they may even have a way of measuring the chemical out that is easier as well.