13 replies to this topic

[mind over matter]

Say an internal auditor is performing an ISO 2000 audit on a company that produces processed fruits. The company has developed and deployed objectives per product.

Example:

Food Safety Objective – Durian product

A. Production Team

PARTICULARS | PARAMETERS | TARGET | FREQUENCY
Durian Pulp Recovery Percentage: 12-18 Every production

B. Quality Assurance Team


PARTICULARS | PARAMETERS | TARGET | FREQUENCY

1) Microbiological Analysis
i. Aerobic Plate Count | CFU/g | 10,000 | Per batch

ii. Yeast & Mold Count | CFU/g | <50 | Per batch


iii. Coliform | CFU/g | Negative | Per batch

iv. E. coli | CFU/g | Negative | Per batch

v. Staphylococcus Aureus | CFU/g | 100 | Per batch

2) Physico-chemical Analysis
i. Soluble Solid | °Brix | 40.0-56.0 | Per batch
ii. Total Solids | Percentage | 44-60.0 | Per batch



3) Sensory Evaluation | Qualitative | Opaque white to | Per batch
i. Appearance Slightly grayish
greenish in color

ii. Texture | Qualitative | Tender particles | Per Production
in viscous
medium
Durian pulp &
syrup are
homogeneous



iii Taste/Flavor | Qualitative | Characteristic | Per Production
sweet durian
flavor. Absence of
spoiled or
fermented taste

iv. Odor | Qualitative | Characteristic | Per Production
strong durian
scent



The above are exactly what they organization has committed itself to doing.

If the organization has done that contradicts the commitment in the objective above, is that nonconformity?

What if the organization is not documenting the action taken/progress of corrective action for not meeting the goals? Is that nonconformity?

Edited by mind over matter, 12 March 2011 - 02:19 PM.

[Charles.C]

Dear MOM,

I am confused.

i only see one specific FS objective in yr list.
is that what you mean by multiple nonconformities, ie failure to understand the meaning of FS. ?

Rgds / Charles.C

[mind over matter]

Dear MOM,

I am confused.

i only see one specific FS objective in yr list.

One of the subsidiary have food safety objectives per product. Yes - I only posted one specific FS objective.

is that what you mean by multiple nonconformities, ie failure to understand the meaning of FS. ?

Rgds / Charles.C

No, my question is if the organization has done that contrdicts the commitment in the objective above, is it a nonconformity or not necessary?

If objective is not being met is not necessarily a nonconformity but non-action becomes one, how about not documenting the action taken (corrections, corrective actions, action plan etc)? Can an auditor report it as nonconformity?

[Charles.C]

Dear Mom,

If you google the literature on iso 9001, the answer to yr question for 9001 depends on the actual case, ie the specific reasons for failure to meet the objective, eg justifiable or not. This seems like good common sense to me.

A failure which is subsequently ignored with respect to corrective actions etc or has no further (planned) action at all appears more likely to generate a NC.

Frankly, I would personally suggest that a nominated objective(s) which is basically inapplicable or applicable but impossible might also generate a NC. If so yr list could generate approx. 13 NCs.

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

I'm no ISO expert but the list you give looks more like a specification list rather than a list of objectives, however, that said, IMO when a company formally records "this is what I shall do" then doesn't do it or doesn't achieve it, concession or corrective action is needed.

Ok, given your example, if you then have a result of Staph aureus of 200, there should be an investigation and corrective action for that. If there wasn't, under BRC standard I would raise a non con / CAR, however, if they'd had a result of 200, then investigated, implemented some corrective actions and then retested with a result of 20, I would think that was good practice not bad practice and raise it as a positive observation (ie not a non con / CAR but the opposite.) Things do go wrong and that should be expected but it's how employees react to that which is important IMO.

[Charles.C]

Dear GMO,

I don't disagree with yr comments but please note that the "Staph.a. objective" was not a max., min., or a range but a fixed point. >> impossible IMO !.

When it comes to micro. specs, I regard nit-picking as a valid exercise. Have personally been bitten too many times after ignoring such niceties.

One could be equally caustic about the other micro. objectives but then they are not FSOs anyway (opinions may differ of course ).

Rgds / Charles.C

[GMO]

Good point I was assuming they were max but even if they were it's good practice to have a "warning" and "action" limit.

[mind over matter]

I'm no ISO expert but the list you give looks more like a specification list rather than a list of objectives,

What makes it not a S.M.A.R.T. objective? In my opinion it’s measurable (e.g. Staph aureus of 100) and we set timelines for accomplishment (e.g. per batch). Given the resources to achieve them, the measurable time, and the responsibilities for who is going to do the work and a strategy for meeting them that will tell if they (the team) have accomplished the objective or not. If the example I posted above is not an objective, I'm quite confused. How do you come up with the FS Objectives? Does every product of the company must have an objective? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[GMO]

I think it might be a miscommunication due to language differences. Specifications (in the UK anyway) are a list of figures, normally with some tolerance levels as Charles indicated which are to be met for each batch.

An objective is something you want to achieve over time. For example, an objective might be "To reduce complaints by 10% by the end of 2011". It's not something you should be achieving already. An objective is something you use to improve your processes not just to say "this is what we make". You're right to think of using SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound) but by saying S. aureus <200 it's not really an objective. Hmmm. This is harder to explain than I thought it would be...

Perhaps if you wanted an objective around S. aureus you should look at your failure rate over the last year; say it's 5%. Your objective then could be "To reduce S. aureus failures to <2% by the end of 2011" for example.

I suppose an objective is around a set of results, not a specific result and so it's more about trending etc rather than control; ie more QA than QC.

[mind over matter]

An objective is something you want to achieve over time. For example, an objective might be "To reduce complaints by 10% by the end of 2011". It's not something you should be achieving already. An objective is something you use to improve your processes not just to say "this is what we make".

If I read you correctly an objective is "what we want to achieve" and my is example above is something like "what we are currently doing"

Edited by mind over matter, 13 March 2011 - 01:35 PM.

[GMO]

If I read you correctly an objective is "what we want to achieve" and my is example above is something like "what we are currently doing"

Yeah, kinda. An objective should be stretching and even though what you've stated probably isn't achieved 100% of the time, it's not really stretching enough. Also it's not "big picture" enough. Think about complaints say. As I said before you could have an objective to reduce total numbers over a year. Your micro example is akin to saying "I want this one pack to not cause a complaint" when actually that doesn't help the factory that much. You want to see a bigger picture result than that, you want to aim higher.

For example, I once set myself an objective to get micro OOS <3% for the site I was working in. They were running at 5% with some spikes. To do this I looked at all the data and analysed it. I sorted the products in order of percentage OOS and using the pareto principle just looked at the top 20% of products which were causing the vast majority of OOS. I then looked at the recipes to see if there was a common factor. It turned out there was a common machine which wasn't working properly due to poor operator practice and poor cleaning.

If I'd looked at one result or even one meal I might not have got the same result (actually reduced micro OOS to <1.5%) so it's worth "looking big" with your objectives simply because you can achieve more.

[YADAV]

A very nice discussion . helped me a lot . A lot of Thanks.

Say an internal auditor is performing an ISO 2000 audit on a company that produces processed fruits. The company has developed and deployed objectives per product.

Example:

Food Safety Objective – Durian product

A. Production Team

PARTICULARS | PARAMETERS | TARGET | FREQUENCY
Durian Pulp Recovery Percentage: 12-18 Every production

B. Quality Assurance Team


PARTICULARS | PARAMETERS | TARGET | FREQUENCY

1) Microbiological Analysis
i. Aerobic Plate Count | CFU/g | 10,000 | Per batch

ii. Yeast & Mold Count | CFU/g | <50 | Per batch


iii. Coliform | CFU/g | Negative | Per batch

iv. E. coli | CFU/g | Negative | Per batch

v. Staphylococcus Aureus | CFU/g | 100 | Per batch

2) Physico-chemical Analysis
i. Soluble Solid | °Brix | 40.0-56.0 | Per batch
ii. Total Solids | Percentage | 44-60.0 | Per batch



3) Sensory Evaluation | Qualitative | Opaque white to | Per batch
i. Appearance Slightly grayish
greenish in color

ii. Texture | Qualitative | Tender particles | Per Production
in viscous
medium
Durian pulp &
syrup are
homogeneous



iii Taste/Flavor | Qualitative | Characteristic | Per Production
sweet durian
flavor. Absence of
spoiled or
fermented taste

iv. Odor | Qualitative | Characteristic | Per Production
strong durian
scent



The above are exactly what they organization has committed itself to doing.

If the organization has done that contradicts the commitment in the objective above, is that nonconformity?

What if the organization is not documenting the action taken/progress of corrective action for not meeting the goals? Is that nonconformity?

[YADAV]

Please provide me food safety manual example so that i can go fo HACCP and ISO 22000

[john.kukoly]

What you put in the original post was definitely a specification. In either 22000 or BRC, objectives need to be viewed as outcomes of continuous improvement more than maintaining status quo. This also means that one out of spec batch and you miss your objective, or have set an objective you know you will not meet.

So, if you use the detail put out in the post as a product specification, and currently 98% of your production meets the specification, your objective would be to raise product conformance to 99.5% or something like that (alternatively, you could tighten up some parts of the specification, knowing you will lower your conformance level, and through analysis come up with an appropriate new target).

The SMART comment by M.O.M on the thread is right on - and simply stating a specification as an objective doesn't satisfy the Realistic part.

John