7 replies to this topic

[Simon]

The post quoted below was made recently by GMO on another thread – it raises a very important topic in my opinion.

Inside the walls of our paradigm the importance of HACCP and food safety and quality are quite obvious, but we must gain the commitment of others to ensure the Food Safety Management System is effective. Those others could be anyone from top management to the shop floor.

We used to have our (former) site manager on the HACCP team. He was one of several managers who were trained to level 3 HACCP. All they had to do was submit a project to get the qualification. Guess how many did? Yep, zero.

Anyway, our former site manager once sat in a meeting checking his emails on his blackberry for the entire time. I challenged him about it afterwards and he claimed he did it "deliberately" so I "took control of the meeting". Needless to say I took control by not inviting him again and his lack of interest in food safety or anything frankly apart from shouting at people led to his demise some months later.

IMO it would be great if you could have a production manager or similar as your HACCP TL but has anyone ever managed it (really)? It's like getting blood out of a stone getting production to turn up let alone get them to organise the thing. Same with management review meetings where I work. Frankly every time we have BRC and I come up with all of the "evidence" that we have senior management commitment it's just a joke. Then after all of that, people complain to me when complaints rise!

Ah technical management. Who'd do it? There is a reason why there is a shortage of TMs and QMs in the UK.

It is very frustrating to be in this position and I thought it would be a useful topic for us to debate and share ideas. Maybe you don’t have any issues – if so please share how you have achieved ‘buy in’.

[GMO]

Thanks Simon,

I specifically brought this up when I was doing Level 4 HACCP and was told it would be addressed but nothing that was raised was new to me or things I'd not tried before. My problem is that within my company, operations people simply do not see it as their job. For example, last year's BRC, the director of our operations was on site but it was hidden from the auditor so he didn't have to attend the opening meeting. What does that say to the rest of the staff about senior management commitment to quality eh?

[Simon]

I hear your frustration GMO, that's exactly why I made this topic. We are looking for ideas that demand interest and commitment to the FSMS, maybe not completely, but more and certainly better than it is now. I'm sure you're not on your own.

[rosie]

Yes senior management committment is always very elusive.
Our CEO is very good in that he always attends the opening and closing meeting of BRC audit and took our HACCP team out for lunch when we completed and validated our HACCP plan.

I find the best way of generating interest is to somehow link it to a cost.

Monthly we circulate the cost of not following our procedures (internal reject, sort costs etc) and try to raise the importance of the plan.

Also when we have a specific complaint or NC I always look up the RASFF database to see if there have been any big recalls or rejects similiar to highlight what could happen to us.

What I would love to have access to would be supermarket recalls for say wrongly labelled product or other problems with what the cost was to relay to our managers - I know the FSA will document a recall but I would like to be able to know how many packaging related recalls Tesco / JS have had in 2010 for example.

Rosie

[GMO]

Yep tried the money thing. I once went on a recall course and manufacturers severely underestimate the costs of recalling product. They always focus on the EPW fine but the costs of replacing product, disposing of product, resolving the problem (e.g. cleaning costs) can mount up to be far higher. Still, despite all of that and my former manager having been through one of the biggest UK recalls at another site, it just didn't motivate them.

I think part of the problem where I work is no-one apart from technical people have any quality based objectives in their appraisals (as far as I've been able to tell).

[Simon]

I think sometimes to production management food safety, quality etc. are seen as a cost in terms of time and effort expended, today, right now, when they are busy with the day to day demands of production and customers.

Because the FSMS works reasonably well, most of the time and is effective in preventing huge issues then short sighted people cannot connect the GMP, HACCP stuff to this success. Well to them it’s not even success it’s just not failure...silence. Hardly motivating.

No doubt good factory organisation, hygiene and working to standard methods contributes to productivity and efficiency and likewise the opposite when things go wrong, so how about trying to develop some measures that link the cost of poor quality and hygiene to productivity.

Maybe number of days since a complaint, lost day’s due to complaints, rejections and rework; expressed as labour and admin time, manufactured units and money.

Regards,
Simon

[Dale P]

Our successes in management buy in have almost always come from quantifying the business risks and costs of food safety (and a lack thereof). Depending on the individual (or department), we've tried to tailor our presentations to what we think they would most likely be receptive to. Not always an easy task though.

[Simon]

I think most Quality Managers try and try over to gain the elusive "senior management commitment" – day after day, year after year and in lots of innovative ways yet they still fail. The durable keep trying and the less patient move on. That lack of senior management commitment lets the rest of the organization off the hook. It’s amazing how things change when a “big boss with buy in” hits the town, suddenly the walls echo with the comments and bounce with the ideas you espoused for years. One could get a little bitter but I prefer to smile…