3 replies to this topic

[Yvonneee]

Hello everyone, I'm currently facing a challenge in documenting procedures for my upcoming audit. The specific section I'm working on pertains to Quality Culture. As part of this, we're required to establish a well-defined plan on how we are gonna manage and enhance product quality. This plan needs to have clear time-bound objectives and undergo regular reviews.  I would greatly appreciate any guidance or suggestions on how to begin tackling this task. 

[Tony-C]

Hi Yvonneee,

 

 

Welcome to the IFSQN forums.

 

If you have already gone through developing a food safety culture then this should be straightforward and along the same lines.

 

The process will involve:

Setting Quality Policies and Objectives

Communicating Quality Objectives and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to relevant staff

Provision of adequate resources to meet the objectives and key performance indicators

Awareness by all staff of their quality responsibilities and their accountability in meeting the requirements of the SQF Quality Code

Responsibility to notify management of actual or pending quality issues and empowerment to resolve quality issues within their scope of work

Education of all relevant staff to understand the importance of quality controls and deviation consequences.

 

Possible Quality Objectives:

Reduction in complaint levels 10% year on year

Certification to the SQF Quality Code by June 2024

To ensure there is an authorized release of products when they have been confirmed as complying with agreed quality criteria

To ensure at all times that product released into the market place complies with relevant customer, statutory and regulatory quality requirements (where applicable)

To pro-actively promote and encourage a culture of continuous improvement within the company by measuring performance and taking action meet the following criteria:

> 98% food safety & quality audit score

< 1% downgraded product

> 99% compliance with quality criteria

No major audit non-conformances

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[Brothbro]

If you browse other threads in this forum, you will also find other threads on this topic. IFSQN has a good search function available from the search bar in the upper right side of the page. Below is a link showing the results returned from searching "quality culture". Browsing these threads you may find some good perspectives on your issue.

 

https://www.ifsqn.co...quality culture

[Kara S.]

Quality Plans are truly a missing link within the food operation, it helps get many other departments involved. The key to success is to change the data we collect and the metrics slightly from what we typical do. The goal is to basically measure the same things but to present it in a way that is speaking everyone else's language. 

 

How is my product becoming out of specification? How should the operators correct this issue? Stop telling operators to call a supervisor - its not efficient. Teach them how to fix this themselves. 

 

Metrics to measure should not just be # of complaints, # of holds... it should be this hold cost the company $$$$$$$ and breakdown the cost - $ product/packaging loss, rerun, rework, man hours, overtime, orders cut, product yield on the line for that day. This information is more impactful and measurable than i had 2 holds in July and 0 in August. Holds happen for all different reasons. You need to show we had this quality issue, we learned what caused the issue and we documented this in our quality plan. As a result, of changing our checks, training on the appropriate corrective action, our production yields increased by _% and complaints are down by _%. We were seeing a loss or $____ and now our losses are here $_____

 

If you can relate everything back to the same metrics operations uses, you will get more buy in from every program you implement. 

• Downtime
• Product Yield
• Food waste
• Overtime 
• Orders cut