10 replies to this topic

[Martinblue]

Hi everyone,

I am bit frustrated with few recent customer complaints. We are a bakery and I have three similar complaints of foreign bodies. I have carried out the investigation but could not find any source. It is 3-4 mm black/brown plastic (apparently I don’t know what to reply to costumer.


Please share your ideas.

Regards

Martin Blue

[GMO]

Ok, I can't explain what it can be without seeing it and knowing your process but perhaps we could go through a 20 questions thing and see if we can help your investigation.

Have you shown it to the engineers and operators?

Have you tried sending it off for identification of the plastic? Campden do this service but they ain't cheap.

Do you have sieving process? Is it actually working? (Sometimes things you think are happening aren't.)

What are your audits showing in terms of foreign bodies? Do you do black bag audits? (Can you start?)

Have you contacted suppliers? Have any of them responded very, very quickly? (Sorry, I have a suspicious mind.)

I'll have a think on to see if I can think of any more lines of investigation.

So, once you've completed the investigation, if you don't find the cause (and I urge you to because if you don't this could cause a big issue. There is obviously a linked issue here which could turn into a recall depending on the politics of your company,) we could help you think of a response. I could suggest the following but again, this does sound like b******* to a customer.

Something like:


"Thank you for contacting us and sending us the piece of foreign material. We have identified it as a piece of brown plastic 2-3 mm in size comprised of xxx plastic. We do not* use this variety of plastic in our facility. On investigation we have unable to identify the source of the plastic. Our suppliers have also been unable to identify the source of the contamination. We have audited our facility and increased the frequency of audits instigating black bag audits on a daily basis etc, etc."


* obviously only write this if it's true.

Not sure if that's any good but it's just off the top of my head.

As I said, this sounds like a withdrawal waiting to happen. I'd tread carefully and find the cause if you can because having one complaint is something you could perhaps dismiss, having several complaints the same suggests you do have a problem. Even if you don't find the exact cause, you need to work on your FSQMS because something has gone wrong.

Edited by GMO, 24 March 2011 - 08:23 PM.

[DebD]

Hello,

At the risk of advertising: RSSL have a foreign body identification service that has been very useful to us in the past for identifying foreign bodies when we have no ides of the source, In one case the item was identified as somethign completely unrelated to our process! This is the link to the relevant page of the website.

http://www.rssl.com/...microscopy.aspx

Good luck in your search.

[Martinblue]

Ok, I can't explain what it can be without seeing it and knowing your process but perhaps we could go through a 20 questions thing and see if we can help your investigation.

Have you shown it to the engineers and operators?

Have you tried sending it off for identification of the plastic? Campden do this service but they ain't cheap.

Do you have sieving process? Is it actually working? (Sometimes things you think are happening aren't.)

What are your audits showing in terms of foreign bodies? Do you do black bag audits? (Can you start?)

Have you contacted suppliers? Have any of them responded very, very quickly? (Sorry, I have a suspicious mind.)

I'll have a think on to see if I can think of any more lines of investigation.

So, once you've completed the investigation, if you don't find the cause (and I urge you to because if you don't this could cause a big issue. There is obviously a linked issue here which could turn into a recall depending on the politics of your company,) we could help you think of a response. I could suggest the following but again, this does sound like b******* to a customer.

Something like:


"Thank you for contacting us and sending us the piece of foreign material. We have identified it as a piece of brown plastic 2-3 mm in size comprised of xxx plastic. We do not* use this variety of plastic in our facility. On investigation we have unable to identify the source of the plastic. Our suppliers have also been unable to identify the source of the contamination. We have audited our facility and increased the frequency of audits instigating black bag audits on a daily basis etc, etc."


* obviously only write this if it's true.

Not sure if that's any good but it's just off the top of my head.

As I said, this sounds like a withdrawal waiting to happen. I'd tread carefully and find the cause if you can because having one complaint is something you could perhaps dismiss, having several complaints the same suggests you do have a problem. Even if you don't find the exact cause, you need to work on your FSQMS because something has gone wrong.

[Martinblue]

Hi GMO,

Thanks a lot . it was really helpful.

Regards

Martin Blue

[Tony-C]

Ok, I can't explain what it can be without seeing it and knowing your process but perhaps we could go through a 20 questions thing and see if we can help your investigation.

Have you shown it to the engineers and operators?

Have you tried sending it off for identification of the plastic? Campden do this service but they ain't cheap.

Do you have sieving process? Is it actually working? (Sometimes things you think are happening aren't.)

What are your audits showing in terms of foreign bodies? Do you do black bag audits? (Can you start?)

Have you contacted suppliers? Have any of them responded very, very quickly? (Sorry, I have a suspicious mind.)

I'll have a think on to see if I can think of any more lines of investigation.

So, once you've completed the investigation, if you don't find the cause (and I urge you to because if you don't this could cause a big issue. There is obviously a linked issue here which could turn into a recall depending on the politics of your company,) we could help you think of a response. I could suggest the following but again, this does sound like b******* to a customer.

Something like:


"Thank you for contacting us and sending us the piece of foreign material. We have identified it as a piece of brown plastic 2-3 mm in size comprised of xxx plastic. We do not* use this variety of plastic in our facility. On investigation we have unable to identify the source of the plastic. Our suppliers have also been unable to identify the source of the contamination. We have audited our facility and increased the frequency of audits instigating black bag audits on a daily basis etc, etc."


* obviously only write this if it's true.

Not sure if that's any good but it's just off the top of my head.

As I said, this sounds like a withdrawal waiting to happen. I'd tread carefully and find the cause if you can because having one complaint is something you could perhaps dismiss, having several complaints the same suggests you do have a problem. Even if you don't find the exact cause, you need to work on your FSQMS because something has gone wrong.

Some pretty good advice but I'd leave out the "black bag audits" out of your customer response as they won't know what they are and will be confused.

[Snitzel]

Sorry, a bit off-topic, but what do you mean by "black bag audits"??
As far as the foreign body investigation goes. Do you apply sieves for all ingedients?
if so then are they less than 3-4mm??
if not then I would try smaller sieves for checking the ingredients (if its possible). If the sieves are <<3-4mm then apparently the contamination comes after sieving.
Is there any grinding involved in the production process? Is the grinding able to produce 3-4mm pieces if a plastic body is introduced?
Is possible to use a sieve just before the mixing of ingredients with water? (I assume you do something like that- I am not of the particular industry)

[GMO]

Good point Tony.

Blag bag audit = take a bag, walk round your facility and pick up potential foreign body contaminants.

Change that to "audit". Of course it depends on whether you're responding to a customer or a consumer.

[Tony-C]

Good point Tony.

Blag bag audit

I presume you mean't to type "Black Bag Audit"
I think it is a retailer term rather than from someone who works in manufacturing

What do you think?

Regards

Tony

[GMO]

Hmm, freudian slip perhaps? Oh dear. Of course I'm not just blagging....

[tery]

Hi everyone,

I received a complaint  metal in product. Material identified as aluminum foil  3x1 mm, its not picked up by our metal detector with sensitivity 1.5mm Fe, 1.5mm NFe abd 1.5mm SS.  We are candy manufacturer. We don't carry aluminum foil in the plant.  I cant clearly define root cause, don't see a way the contaminant been originated in our facility.

I have to complete CAPA report for the customer, defining root cause, action plan and verification of effectiveness.

 

 

Please share your thoughts,

Thank you

 

Please share your ideas.

Regards

Martin Blue