Hi all, I recently conducted an audit on one of our packaging material suppliers. As part of the audit I'd identified that the set of scales they use:
- "to assist with product processing, troubleshooting, and trending of product grammage."
I'd checked that the scales are calibrated and could confirm the scales are calibrated on an annual basis. However they do no other calibration checks between the annual calibrations. I'd raised this as a minor non conformance. As the question I had is how do they know the scales are accurate and what would happen if it was found the scales were out of calibration at the next annual check? I was assessing this requirement as part of the BRC standards. I'd said they need to do some monitoring of the scales, daily/weekly/monthly - at least something to ensure scales are within calibration between the calibrations.
The scales are used for quality monitoring - checking of weights of containers being manufactured. With the NC they advised that
- Deviation in grammage that would begin to register as a quality issue would become apparent at both the visual / physical product QC inspection, as well as the topload measurement stage. There are a number of interrelated inspections that together would indicate a decrease in product quality.
- historical review of grammage data is not something critical to our process
I'm still not sure that this is an appropriate response/action. They are relying on other QC checks to show that there is an issue in the injection molding process and not just the scale check. Surely a simple one point mass check on the scales on a predetermined frequency would also be a proper corrective action? If their weight check is not critical and there are other qc aspects that can indicate issues - then why bother? I know why the do hence them doing the check - so it has to be important - so a simply one point check would be to their advantage as well? They are FSSC certified for packaging - I'd be interested to know if anyone else who works in the manufacture of packaging for bottles etc have a QC weight check and how they monitor this and their scales calibration. Also what is the FSSC packaging requirement for calibration and monitoring?