22 replies to this topic

[mind over matter]

Prompted by a post our forum member redchariot which contained the following.

As far as verification is concerned, the example table by the previous poster should be adequate as long as you can back it up with the appropriate documentation; for example if you say that verification is carried out through internal audits, be prepared to show these audits (clearly showing details of checks on the CCPs) to an external auditor.





I totally agree with him but I'd like to pose the following:



1) What is the minimum requirement for an ISO 22000/HACCP internal auditor?

2) Is Microbiology a plus or a must?



I think it will take 4 years to study microbiology. 8 hours of internal training is not sufficient to help beginners become good, knowledgeable, competent auditors. Even some people, who were "trained" in approved ISO programs, are not always competent.



Let me illustrate 3 different people with different competence.

First Person: A person who posses a PhD or a degree, has excellent communication skills, but lacks the food safety knowledge.



Second Person: A person who doesn’t even have an associate degree yet have trainings and experience on food safety.



Third Person: Knowledgeable on ISO 9001 “process approach,” possesses excellent personality traits and can communicate effectively, but lack knowledge of microbiology and chemical hazards, and doesn’t hold a degree.



Please rank in order the above, from the most to the least competent auditor. Please state your reason for your choices. What is meant to be competent?

[Charles.C]

Dear MOM,

I don't specifically disagree with yr quoted bit but IMO it is simply introducing another un-necessary diversion (the IA aspect). Or perhaps that is the objective ? ie Divide and Conquer ?

Regarding the competence issue, i think every company has well-defined / published requirements. Whether they are uniform to one over-riding "law" i am less certain. probably not, just like ISO 22000. Although there is an ISO standard on auditing as discussed in another thread here.

IMEX, it is not (sadly) unknown to encounter specialist "auditors" accompanying the head honcho to handle fine details where considered necessary. Depends on their budget also i guess.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Tony-C]

What is meant to be competent?

Perhaps these may help:
6.2.1 General
The food safety team and the other personnel carrying out activities having an impact on food safety shall be competent and shall have appropriate education, training, skills and experience.



Competent – adjective
1. having suitable or sufficient skill, knowledge, experience, etc., for some purpose
2. adequate but not exceptional

You don't have to have a PhD in Microbiology to be competent in Food Safety principles.

Regards,

Tony

[mind over matter]

I don't specifically disagree with yr quoted bit but IMO it is simply introducing another un-necessary diversion (the IA aspect). Or perhaps that is the objective ? ie Divide and Conquer ?

No, the objective of this thread is to know the competencies and skills required for auditing.

Regarding the competence issue, i think every company has well-defined / published requirements. Whether they are uniform to one over-riding "law" i am less certain. probably not, just like ISO 22000. Although there is an ISO standard on auditing as discussed in another thread here.

I am part of the internal audit team. I lack knowledge on microbiology and chemical hazards. Sadly, the company cannot send me to formal trainings. I am frustrated knowing that an industry/sector specific skills (terminology, process, technology practices) is vital in internal audit. Despite that I have been doing a lot of reading here. Plenty of materials on varied areas on food safety. My officemate who attended HACCP trainings provided by his previous company but cannot even conduct effective and useful audits. Another employee from R&D team who is a food tech graduate, a practitioner of GMP and HACCP, and conducting food safety trainings for her team, but still had to attend "formal" training because she could not prove she was "trained" even though she taught them.

IMEX, it is not (sadly) unknown to encounter specialist "auditors" accompanying the head honcho to handle fine details where considered necessary. Depends on their budget also i guess.

I want to know experts thoughts on this. I really need to know if I am competent and qualified to be part of the internal audit team. If the yardstick of an effective internal audit is the auditor must be competent, then what competency really is? This leads me to ask another question "Can FSMS be judged effective or ineffective based on the competency of an auditor?" <BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">

[Zeeshan]

I ........I'd like to pose the following:

1) What is the minimum requirement for an ISO 22000/HACCP internal auditor?

2) Is Microbiology a plus or a must?

I think it will take 4 years to study microbiology. 8 hours of internal training is not sufficient to help beginners become good, knowledgeable, competent auditors. Even some people, who were "trained" in approved ISO programs, are not always competent.

Let me illustrate 3 different people with different competence.

First Person: A person who posses a PhD or a degree, has excellent communication skills, but lacks the food safety knowledge.

Second Person: A person who doesn’t even have an associate degree yet have trainings and experience on food safety.

Third Person: Knowledgeable on ISO 9001 “process approach,” possesses excellent personality traits and can communicate effectively, but lack knowledge of microbiology and chemical hazards, and doesn’t hold a degree.

Please rank in order the above, from the most to the least competent auditor. Please state your reason for your choices. What is meant to be competent?

I am part of the internal audit team. I lack knowledge on microbiology and chemical hazards. Sadly, the company cannot send me to formal trainings. I am frustrated knowing that an industry/sector specific skills (terminology, process, technology practices) is vital in internal audit. Despite that I have been doing a lot of reading here. Plenty of materials on varied areas on food safety. My officemate who attended HACCP trainings provided by his previous company but cannot even conduct effective and useful audits. Another employee from R&D team who is a food tech graduate, a practitioner of GMP and HACCP, and conducting food safety trainings for her team, but still had to attend "formal" training because she could not prove she was "trained" even though she taught them.

I want to know experts thoughts on this. I really need to know if I am competent and qualified to be part of the internal audit team. If the yardstick of an effective internal audit is the auditor must be competent, then what competency really is? This leads me to ask another question "Can FSMS be judged effective or ineffective based on the competency of an auditor?"

1- "Can FSMS be judged effective or ineffective based on the competency of an auditor?"
I must say that true judgement of effectiveness of FSMS depends on combination of some "critical" factors and most important of them, IMO, is
competency of the internal auditor.

2- Internal audits in an organization is generally conducted by multiple teams. Since an organization usually have multiple functions like sales and marketing, purchasing, storage/warehousing, quality control, production, administration and maintenance. All these functions involve many sets of skills therefore it is impossible to have all similar set of skills in one or more auditors. Many small organizations even have no competent impartial person for auditing a particular function. This is no doubt a big challenge and even bigger for FSMS auditing. To counter this challange I think fundamental trainning and awareness of cross-functions is very important. I have no formal qualification related to food industry but since 1997 when I joined a food industry I struggled to learn about many aspects of food industry like food safety hazards, pathogens, hazard analysis, food processing etc. Definitely after getting some knowledge of food processing and microbiology you can not stand parallel with a food technolgist or microbiologist but you may understand the commonly and frequently used terminologies and concepts. It is good to have a independent microbiologist for auditing a microbiological laboratory but it is an ideal condition for small or even for many medium-size organizations.

The conclusion is that awareness or experience on food safety is the first most important competency of an internal auditor of FSMS. The second most important competency is awareness or expecience on management system including skills of internal auditing, good concept of process approach and PDCA approach. The third most important aspect is personal attributes (unbais, fair, ethical, open-minded, observant, perceptive, decisive etc). The most effective blend of these three competencies makes a competent internal auditor.

Regards:
M.Zeeshan

[Charles.C]

Dear Zeeshan,

Very well said IMO ( ) except, perhaps, for the PDCA bit (I find the basic concept self-evident but the details more or less incomprehensible).

Rgds / Charles.C

[MQA]

The conclusion is that awareness or experience on food safety is the first most important competency of an internal auditor of FSMS. The second most important competency is awareness or expecience on management system including skills of internal auditing, good concept of process approach and PDCA approach. The third most important aspect is personal attributes (unbais, fair, ethical, open-minded, observant, perceptive, decisive etc). The most effective blend of these three competencies makes a competent internal auditor.

I agree with Zeeshan. Awareness, objectiveness and open mindedness. Qualifications are also important.

Mind Over Matter, have you considered night or online courses to strengthen your skill set? Do them for yourself, rather than waiting for your company to pay for you.

[mind over matter]

1- "Can FSMS be judged effective or ineffective based on the competency of an auditor?"
I must say that true judgement of effectiveness of FSMS depends on combination of some "critical" factors and most important of them, IMO, is
competency of the internal auditor.

I agree. It depends on combination of critical factors, but not just the competency of an internal auditor. Having competent auditor is a plus factor. In my opinion an FSMS can be effective and still be audited by an incompetent auditor, and vice-versa.

[GMO]

I have to say I have mixed feelings about this. I was a competent auditor long before I was trained to be. This is because I have a science background (and so approach things logically and look for evidence), and I like to think I'm fairly personable and manage to get information (good and bad) fairly easily.

That said, as an auditor myself, I am always looking for the evidence and I want to see clear objective evidence. I have a science degree and PhD but neither of them taught me how to audit per se. Plenty of my colleagues would have been lousy at auditing. Anyway so I have done a course in internal auditing to give me that certificate. Was it useful? No. Did it teach me anything I didn't know already? Erm, no again. Did it even have any practical test in it? No again. But now I have that piece of paper to satisfy an auditor.

Personally I have nothing wrong with being asked to do training courses even when I could have written the course myself, you can always learn from a course (even if all you learn is "this is not how I would teach auditing"). Once you have a "trained" auditor though there is nothing in most standards to say that the trained auditor cannot then train other members of staff.

[Charles.C]

Dear GMO,

Something tells me yr progeny will make a great auditor !

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

I was just thinking about exams and tests. I was a competent driver long after I passed my driving test worryingly but I was competent at Chemistry long before my finals said so (she says modestly). That's the thing about tests, they don't really display competence, they display test results at the time you take them. Practical observation is better but prone to personality factors and how you define a test (I've not parallel parked since.) It's difficult though without some kind of course attendance or test though to display competence in an easily auditable way.

[mind over matter]

Mind Over Matter, have you considered night or online courses to strengthen your skill set? Do them for yourself, rather than waiting for your company to pay for you.

I do not have extra time for online courses. There are no opportunities to be exposed to microbiological testing of food samples too. I would greatly appreciate if anyone could give me some materials - beginner’s tutorial. When I reviewed our subsidiary’s HACCP documentation, the typical microbes I encountered are coliform, e.coli, Staph Aureus, and yeast &amp; mold count. Maybe I could start there. Is that possible? Is it a must to do the actual testing myself?

Edited by mind over matter, 13 March 2011 - 11:46 AM.

[Charles.C]

Dear MOM,

There are a few quite good (IMO), non-encyclopaedic, free resources on-line, eg -

http://www.icd-online.org/

The typical problem IMO is that like most subjects, there are levels of learning. It is not so difficult to rapidly acquire knowledge relating to typical food pathogenic micro-organisms but it is another step to achieve competency to develop / evaluate product microbiological specifications. Particularly when time (and money?) is highly limited.

Rgds / Charles.C

[mind over matter]

Dear MOM,

There are a few quite good (IMO), non-encyclopaedic, free resources on-line, eg -

http://www.icd-online.org/

The typical problem IMO is that like most subjects, there are levels of learning. It is not so difficult to rapidly acquire knowledge relating to typical food pathogenic micro-organisms but it is another step to achieve competency to develop / evaluate product microbiological specifications. Particularly when time (and money?) is highly limited.

Rgds / Charles.C

Great site. Thank you for sharing.

[Tony-C]

The conclusion is that awareness or experience on food safety is the first most important competency of an internal auditor of FSMS.
Regards:
M.Zeeshan

You make some good points but it is actually common sense.

[MQA]

Mind Over Matter,

Also check out these websites for further information on bacterium and other such infectious diseases:

• Red Meat Innovation
• FDA
• Centres for Disease Control & Prevention and here
• World Health Organisation
• Health Department (Australia, NSW)
• Health Department (Australia, VIC) and The Blue Book

For info on food poisoning outbreaks (keeps you in the know on patterns) and food safety lobbyists:

• Attorney Pages
• Food Safety News
• Marler's Outbreak Database

I use these sites quite regularly. I also follow the Twitter accounts of Food Safety News and Marler. Granted it is predominately USA information, they also have sufficient information from around the world. Sometimes, I find out about food recalls in Australia from Food Safety News BEFORE they are released on our FSANZ website.

[Foodworker]

It is probably not necessary to be able to do the micro testing itself to be able to audit the HACCP. The exception is if you are auditing the functioning of the laboratory itself to ISO17025 or similar.

You do need though,an understanding of the consequences of the finding the organismms and methods of control.

To be an effective food safety auditor, you need to be able to do an ongoing mental risk assessment of each situation you faced with. Otherwise you are almost auditing as a ritual.

Judging the competency of internal auditors is difficult and most often becomes an issue during an external audit. If the external audit identifies a lot of genuine Non Conformities which were not uncovered by your own internal auditors there is a problem.

Having seen a lot of internal audit reports, the quality of auditing and reporting varies a enormously. In my opinion,and of course generalising, the worst internal food safety auditors are those who have only come through the ISO9000 route. They tend not to challenge as deeply as auditors who have a food safety background.

The worst report that I have come across was basically a spellcheck of the procedure with no evaluation of how it had been implemented. The auditor was a fully qualified ISO9000 internal auditor with nice shiny certificates.

[GMO]

Having seen a lot of internal audit reports, the quality of auditing and reporting varies a enormously. In my opinion,and of course generalising, the worst internal food safety auditors are those who have only come through the ISO9000 route. They tend not to challenge as deeply as auditors who have a food safety background.

Completely agreed. I find the ISO9000 approach too focussed on "are you doing what you say you're doing" rather than "is what you say you're doing safe?" Personally I think audits should address both or at least you should have a systems based audit to address the latter at another time.

[HPG]

To be an effective food safety auditor, you need to be able to do an ongoing mental risk assessment of each situation you faced with. Otherwise you are almost auditing as a ritual.

Judging the competency of internal auditors is difficult and most often becomes an issue during an external audit. If the external audit identifies a lot of genuine Non Conformities which were not uncovered by your own internal auditors there is a problem.

Having seen a lot of internal audit reports, the quality of auditing and reporting varies a enormously. In my opinion,and of course generalising, the worst internal food safety auditors are those who have only come through the ISO9000 route. They tend not to challenge as deeply as auditors who have a food safety background.

The worst report that I have come across was basically a spellcheck of the procedure with no evaluation of how it had been implemented. The auditor was a fully qualified ISO9000 internal auditor with nice shiny certificates.

I'm totally agreed.
I think that happen because lack of knowledge about food safety or safe product.

[Dr Ajay Shah]

Just go to Google and type in "BAD BUG BOOK" and you will see a wealth of information.

Reagrds

Ajay

[Dr Ajay Shah]

Once a person has been trained in Internal Auditing irrelevant of the standard. He/she requires to conduct a number of audits to get a feel for auditing and also build the confidence. It is always better to go with an experienced auditor who could be your mentor. I had to go through the mill and conduct a lot of audits and now I am also a certified thrird party auditor. Even though one has a PhD they all have to go through the mill. i had a mentor and now I am mentoring junior people on how to condust audits.


Ajay

Edited by Dr Ajay Shah, 15 March 2011 - 04:26 AM.

[Zeeshan]

You make some good points but it is actually common sense.

Yes, but as someone have said common sense is a sense which is not common. The prime source of all the knowledge which has been gained and organized by human beings till now is 'common sense'.

[mind over matter]

Yes, but as someone have said common sense is a sense which is not common. The prime source of all the knowledge which has been gained and organized by human beings till now is 'common sense'.

I think everyone has different opinions on what is common sense and what is non-sense. Perhaps the need for an audit is common sense because food manufacturing companies that adopt eg; FSMS recognize the need for auditing when many of them are not doing one thing many different ways.