Pre-op Inspection for two 12 hr shift
Hi Food Safety Family,
Any advice on how to conduct pre-op for two 12 hr shifts / 6 days a week?
Would conducting one pre-op inspection each day be sufficient for SQF? Since the shift staggers and there's no downtime to conduct the 2nd pre-op.
Thank you,
Hello!
my advice would be to perform a pre op inspection at start of shift, and a During Operational inspection 6 hours later.
A lot goes on during a work day, for example if you're food manufacturing verification of temperatures, sanitation, employee behavior etc are huge.
Personally performing one inspection during a 12 hr shift may leave room for questions & shaky answers during an audit.
I hope this helps!
Hi Food Safety Family,
Any advice on how to conduct pre-op for two 12 hr shifts / 6 days a week?
Would conducting one pre-op inspection each day be sufficient for SQF? Since the shift staggers and there's no downtime to conduct the 2nd pre-op.
Thank you,
Hello!
my advice would be to perform a pre op inspection at start of shift, and a During Operational inspection 6 hours later.
A lot goes on during a work day, for example if you're food manufacturing verification of temperatures, sanitation, employee behavior etc are huge.
Personally performing one inspection during a 12 hr shift may leave room for questions & shaky answers during an audit.
I hope this helps!
Agreed, it would be best to have more than just the 1 weekly pre-op. I worked somewhere in which we did 1 preop on Sundays when we turned the equipment back on after cleaning, and then ran for the full week. We called it a "Cold-Start Pre-Op".
We then had start of shift inspections which were not as in depth, but covered overheads/foreign material concerns, equipment settings, and verifying they were running the correct products/ labels. It was basically treated as our Food Safety/Quality/Defense check that each shift had to do once they started. They would document and report any issues; the ops supervisor had to sign off at end of shift, and then QA verified with 24 hours.
We operate 24/6 with three shifts. Each shift does a 'pre-op' when they come on, even if the line is running.
We also have 2 shifts, though, they're overlapping. Agree with SQFconsultunt: 1 pre-op a day is completely fine, especially if you're not doing cleaning in-between the shifts.
Does production stop at any time for sanitation purposes or to change products?
I think one preop checklist should be fine if the production line is running uninterrupted. The purpose of the preop inspection is to ensure that the conditions of the utilities used for manufacturing practices are up to standard before starting production, so those conditions should change between shifts so as long as GMP standards are continuously met.
I don't disagree with the above, but also don't want to generalize. I'm not sure what OP's actual products/product categories are - so it should actually be risk assessed as to whether one pre-op per day is appropriate. I know we tend to throw around the phrase "risk assessment" a lot in the Quality world, but I feel this warrants it. If justifications are reviewed and documented, then one pre-op should suffice with the line running continuously. Higher-risk product categories might require more than one pre-op. It could also very well depend on the nature of the product - for example: does it harden or clog up the production equipment over time and require some kind of intervention periodically during the shift?
In my opinion (not saying I'm right), I would prefer to have one per shift. It keeps people acclimated to conducting proper checks, and also gives a bit more assurance that the line was clean, in good standing, and setup correctly. I'd personally like to have to put less product on hold rather than more if something is found to suggest an issue.
Ultimately though, as long as the written risk assessment justifies the reasoning, one pre-op is fine.
We had this question come up in a plant I used to help run. It was a 3rd party tolling operation for spices and vegetables, and production runs ranged from a few hours to multiple days/multiple shifts (three shift, 24/5 operation). SOP's for the pre-op checklists called for all shifts to perform the pre-op inspections, and indicate "already running" or "in service" for items like "Is the equipment clean for startup?" type questions. Performing the rest of the checklist was helpful to ensure the working area around the equipment was in satisfactory condition as the next shift took over for the current shift, and both SQF and customers found the distinction was acceptable given how it was covered in SOP and supporting PRP's.