6 replies to this topic

[GMO]

Hear me out...

 

After my lament on the lack of people in the food industry, we got a little off topic.  There was a lot of concern about audit frequency, weight etc.

 

I cannot work out if this is a genius idea or terrifying...  Or both!

 

But a lot of our factories have CCTV.  Imagine if you could have an AI overlay onto what people are doing on that CCTV?  The technology probably exists already or would be easy to develop to determine compliance with, say, handwashing.  But imagine if it could also assess compliance to cleaning standards?  Right tools used?  Right chemicals?  What about bringing the right items to the line etc?

I don't think as much of this is as far fetched as you may imagine.  But would people want it?  Would retailers want it?  Legislators?  Managers?  Staff?  Technical people?

 

Would you really want to know what happens when nobody is watching?  In a time efficient way so that you're not trawling through hours of CCTV...?  I think I would.  I just worry about the ethics of it all but the ethics to the consumer would be pretty fantastic.  I suppose my one real sinking feeling is I hate the idea of more policing rather than actually getting people to do the right thing because they believe in it... 

 

But what if that meant zero external audits?  Or would we get all Oceans 11 with a loop of video playing over and over...

 

Am I mad or a genius...?

 

Discuss!

[Setanta]

Am I mad or a genius...? 

 

Could it be---BOTH?!     I do have reservations about this, but...on the other hand.

[GMO]

Maybe there's room to start including it into some level of GMP auditing to start with?

 

But I think the reason it popped to mind is I heard of an auditor asking to see some CCTV coverage on a site from the night before and I thought "that auditor is a bloody genius!"  I know it's full on getting my truncheon out copper mode* but also wouldn't that be REALLY interesting?  What was happening before you knew I was here?

Admittedly I did once arrive early for an interview so I did a site exterior audit (just looking in from the exterior fence).  It was enlightening when they asked me what I'd improve.  I had a list!  

 

(*Sorry that probably makes NO sense if you're not British.)

[jfrey123]

Semi related, I saw a video the other day on Reddit of some AI cameras in an office setting.  It tracked the people's movements, green highlighted box for employees sitting in their chairs working.  Red box with running timer when an employee was out of their chair or even simply not looking at their monitor, and the video claimed employers could deduct non-working time recorded by this camera.  So the technology is obviously here, just a matter of paying for the programming to teach it what you want it to see and monitor.  Most intriguing would be to have it record as employees enter and track whether they wash their hands at the stations or not.

 

Recording your facility is a double-edged sword:  yes, great tool for internal reviews and investigations, but it depends highly on that self-monitoring because if you missed something then the evidence of a citable non-conformity is clear and present for your regulatory agencies.

[ChristinaK]

It would be interesting to apply to some food safety applications, but I don't believe the technology is there yet in terms of AI fully replacing a human auditor.

 

Maybe it could be useful in the audit report itself? For instance, if I'm an SQF auditor and I record an observation of a non-conformance for a certain clause, the audit report AI could then prompt me to check for other non-conformances for related clauses. It could be a method of keeping auditors from being too lenient...on the other hand I could also see it becoming too much of a "babysitter" and possibly causing an auditor to miss something just because it wasn't pointed out to them by the AI.

 

AI could be useful in helping determine applicable regulations for products, ensuring that there is lower likelihood of a recall for an item based on incorrect label declarations or for exceeding regulatory limits on preservatives, etc. It would be great if it could assist in regulatory requirements that you run into with the more complicated supply chains.

 

But we could run into a major issue if the AI system were to be hacked...

[G M]

I think the tech already exists, with some minor caveats that it may need to be audited/trained to understand actions around specific equipment or food industry standard actions. If it were used to monitor something like handwashing with immediate feedback, like a more elaborate version of the faucets with timer lights it could certainly be beneficial, but that seems like a "hard sell" for the cost to benefit ratio for the bean counters.

 

The idea of a regular auditor asking for a date and time for CCTV footage seems a bit unsettling.   I can just see Costco adding that to their next set of expectations, everyone has to install cameras and months of backup record capacity so the auditor can pick days and times at random -- although that might honestly be less annoying than 100% random audit dates for the visit.

[Aartisharma98]

Semi related, I saw a video the other day on Reddit of some AI cameras in an office setting.  It tracked the people's movements, green highlighted box for employees sitting in their chairs working.  Red box with running timer when an employee was out of their chair or even simply not looking at their monitor, and the video claimed employers could deduct non-working time recorded by this camera.  So the technology is obviously here, just a matter of paying for the programming to teach it what you want it to see and monitor.  Most intriguing would be to have it record as employees enter and track whether they wash their hands at the stations or not.

 

Recording your facility is a double-edged sword:  yes, great tool for internal reviews and investigations, but it depends highly on that self-monitoring because if you missed something then the evidence of a citable non-conformity is clear and present for your regulatory agencies.

i saw this in a video in a Chinese school kids have a gear (powered by AI) on which with a light on it. White = they are concentrating, red = they are not. All the stats of each and every student is received by teacher's computer and the results are sent to parents.

 

AI is used in indian city for driving tests and everyone is failing. humans give some wiggle room but AI doesn't. 

 

It should be banned from offices, employees are underpaid, inflation is rising, companies are profiting.

 

AI's application for tracking GMP sounds promising, also agree with it being double edged sword

Edited by Aartisharma98, 15 May 2024 - 01:50 PM.