Lead time for microbiology and chemical testing

Dear all!

There exist an issue since long between our QA and Material Management department about lead time for microbiology. QA department ask at least 3 days for taking decision of approval or disapproval of received product. On the other side, MM department argues that what would happen if QA reject a lot after 3 days. Most of the supplier (especially those who are providing a small quantity of material) are not willing to deal in such situations.

I know, Supplier Pre-Approval is one of the solution, and supplier aggrement to handle such situation is another solution, but unfortunately these are not feasible in case of small-quantity suppliers.
Do somebody have some other good suggestions to solve this problem . I am not a food technologist or microbiologist, therefore I want to know whether QA department is justified to ask at-least 3-days lead time for microbilology. How much maximum lead time is required for chemical testing of common raw materials. Do some body have a list / document of lead time required for microbilogical and chemical testing.

Advance thanks!

Regards:
M.Zeeshan.

It would help to know what materials you're talking about?

Generally I would never want to wait for microbiological results because it's slow and also contamination might not be uniform so if you test one sample it might not be representative. It's also kind of anti-HACCP. It's much better to ensure the foodstuff is safe to start with.

If you have small suppliers, I would suggest the effort in auditing them and checking they're up to the standard (or changing supplier to one who is) is more than paid off by the day to day time and expense you're incurring by testing every delivery.

Zeeshan,

Why can't you tell the supplier to give the certificate of analysis by 3rd party accredited laboratory along with the supplied material?. This will to some extent give reliability of the material supplied.

Rgds,
anish

Dear all!

There exist an issue since long between our QA and Material Management department about lead time for microbiology. QA department ask at least 3 days for taking decision of approval or disapproval of received product. On the other side, MM department argues that what would happen if QA reject a lot after 3 days. Most of the supplier (especially those who are providing a small quantity of material) are not willing to deal in such situations.

I know, Supplier Pre-Approval is one of the solution, and supplier aggrement to handle such situation is another solution, but unfortunately these are not feasible in case of small-quantity suppliers.
Do somebody have some other good suggestions to solve this problem . I am not a food technologist or microbiologist, therefore I want to know whether QA department is justified to ask at-least 3-days lead time for microbilology. How much maximum lead time is required for chemical testing of common raw materials. Do some body have a list / document of lead time required for microbilogical and chemical testing.

Advance thanks!

Regards:
M.Zeeshan.

Zeeshan,

Why can't you tell the supplier to give the certificate of analysis by 3rd party accredited laboratory along with the supplied material?. This will to some extent give reliability of the material supplied.

Rgds,
anish

That is of course a very good point and one I should have thought of.

Dear All,

As GMO correctly stated, we don't yet know what we are talking about. As usual ?.

Some analyses are difficult / expensive / slow, some are not.

More info, Zeeshan, please.

This will to some extent give reliability of the material supplied

It is done, often within long-term (mutual trust) contracts but it is rather unlikely that a 3rd part certificate showing positive Salmonella detection for a handsample will ever be offered. --> New sample.

Inspection companies make good money by controlling complete product lots and guaranteeing destination results of physical / chemical characteristics. But it is often difficult / unprofitable for micro. properties.

Rgds / Charles.C

Dear Zeeshan,

I agree with others that you should specify your raw materials firstly. I worked in a meat factory. In my factory raw material meat is tested per delievery batch. And similar situation do occured as you mentioned:

Purchasing dept. manager argued and complained to the QA dept.manager that he did not want to the batch of material rejected because of a positive result in the test report.

However, why setting QA dept. indpendent from other dept.(e.g. production, purchasing) is to avoid QA affected by other dept. Thus they should insist on their views.

Normally the purchasing cost is the key factor to made the purchaser argue with QA department. However, actually besides the rejection decision, there are also other decisions to deal with the out of specification raw materials:(e.g. concession, allow the usage of raw materials in a lower requirement product). And the QA manager of my last worked company used to asking for a special batch code for the concessioned raw materials(e.g. add a "*" after the batch code).

And by year statistic, the concession raw materials and the test for end-products made of such RM will be collected and assessed. If the results show the concession not result in the safety/quality problems, the specification of RM will be consdered to be re-validated.

Of course when QA could not make a decision, a further pending issue could be reported by QA to senior management for decision.

Thus, if your material is meat, I do not think three days is so tight.

Hoping could help you a bit,

Best regards,

Jason

Dear Zeeshan,

For bacterial testing, the shortest time is 3 days depending of types of bacteria that you are testing. If you are talking about Salmonella, it will be more than that.

From my understanding, there are ways to shorten the testing time but it will eventually increase your cost. There are some companies in the industry is providing test kits that can know the result within 24 hours but the accuracy of the test kit is yet to be known. And the types of bacteria tested may be very limited.

But I would agree with GMO that if you are able to control it from your source of supply, it will be easier for you. Of course we cannot be 100% confident with the source but if in the long term they do not have any problem, the risk would be lower. But you will have to be extra careful when there is oubreak of diseases.

Just my humble opinion.

Cheers~

For bacterial testing, the shortest time is 3 days depending of types of bacteria that you are testing. If you are talking about Salmonella, it will be more than that.

Enterobacteriaceae test results can be available in 24 hours and I have used these results for the positive release of products.

Regards,

Tony

First of all sorry for so late response!

Thanks GMO, Anish, Charles, Jason, elise and Tony for replying.

Some members asked me to specify the exact raw material(s) of concern. Actually I just want to ask the minimum avg. lead time for microbiology for commonly used raw material especially perishable items such as meat, dairy etc. I want to know an authentication similar to elise's reply "For bacterial testing, the shortest time is 3 days depending of types of bacteria that you are testing. If you are talking about Salmonella, it will be more than that.". But I am shocked by GMO's answer-"Generally I would never want to wait for microbiological results because it's slow and also contamination might not be uniform so if you test one sample it might not be representative. It's also kind of anti-HACCP. It's much better to ensure the foodstuff is safe to start with." I do agree with the last statement that its much better to ensure the foodstuff is safe to start with, but if management (who is already inclined with fast working and very much concerned with cost of manufacturing) is given a clue that processing could be done to end without depending on the resuls of microbiological tests than, IMO, it would make the situation worst. The post-screaming of QA deparment about heavy intial microbial load would not be listened till a big disaster.

Regarding suppliers, I must invoke a pak-indo proverb "One-eyed would be the Raja (king) among the blinds". The best among the worst is the least worst. On the other hand if you have to be 100% sure, the cost would reach upto the sky.

Regards:
M.Zeeshan.

IMO.. If you think that Micro paramter is important for your decision, Why your MM management dont expalin to the supplier and put it on purchase contract ? I think if thats clear between your MM management and SUpplier, thats no problem in the next. That what i am doingnow in my company.

rgds

AS Nur

Dear Zeeshan,

IMEX, very few (if any) suppliers of fresh, sensitive produce will even contemplate holding their product outside a factory for 1day, let alone 3 days, waiting for a yes/no decision of the kind we are discussing. The quality / safety / economic / logistical risks on the supplier's side are surely obvious.

GMO has given you a textbook HACCP viewpoint. Exceptions can sometimes occur where delays may be acceptable, eg frozen raw materials which can be unloaded into cold storage.

Quality / safety issues are also closely linked with Supplier Approval procedures of course, eg if you buy a large consignment which is sampled and accepted on arrival but during processing is found to have certain codes / portions with unacceptable levels of contamination, an interesting situation occurs. Some trial contracts instantly disintegrate at such instances whereas long-term relationships may survive, eg compromise. Such situations often represent an opportunity for independent inspection companies.

Rgds / Charles.C

GMO has given you a textbook HACCP viewpoint.

Yay I'm textbook