Wire Brushes - Low Care

Whats everyone's opinion on having a wire brush in a low care production area?

I wouldn't have one in low risk or high risk at all. They are fine when new but break and shed their bristles giving the potential for product contamination. Engineers tend to want them for use with the print heads etc. I would say take the print head to the wire brush and decontaminate as necessary to get the print head back into production. I understand a large company had such a problem late last year and were looking to x ray vast amounts of product.

IME, they're very difficult to avoid if you have sealing machines, e.g. heat sealed flow-wrapped packs (some flow wrapping machine suppliers won't guarantee seals to their machine specification unless they're used so it's a balance on which is the bigger risk to you and whether the purpose you want them for is process critical.) I don't like them but I've not found an alternative for some applications.

I think you have to be careful; implement a rigorous inspection regime prior and after use, check the bristles are detectable in your detection equipment etc (and record all of this.) Another alternative would be to only allow their use by engineers and use your post work hygiene clearance procedure if you can.

Ideally though, if you can avoid using them, I would. Is it an open product or closed product low risk area? If it's the latter, I'd be slightly more relaxed.

IME, they're very difficult to avoid if you have sealing machines, e.g. heat sealed flow-wrapped packs (some flow wrapping machine suppliers won't guarantee seals to their machine specification unless they're used so it's a balance on which is the bigger risk to you and whether the purpose you want them for is process critical.) I don't like them but I've not found an alternative for some applications.

I think you have to be careful; implement a rigorous inspection regime prior and after use, check the bristles are detectable in your detection equipment etc (and record all of this.) Another alternative would be to only allow their use by engineers and use your post work hygiene clearance procedure if you can.

Ideally though, if you can avoid using them, I would. Is it an open product or closed product low risk area? If it's the latter, I'd be slightly more relaxed.

100% agree with GMO. They are a necessary evil on heat seals and no one seems to have a good alternative.

I totally agree with the comments made by GMO. I have a client who uses brushes to clean the heat seals but we ensure that we check the brushes daily even though we have a metal detector on site, Again having a metal detector does not solve all your problems as it all depends on the sensitivity of the detector.

Thanks Guys!

The product is being flow wrapped so open at infeed and closed on outfeed and yes they are using it on the heat seals. We did buy them a food safe brush which they complained about so I guess as long as its controlled and not left out during production we should be able to satisfy an auditor......

Thanks Guys!

The product is being flow wrapped so open at infeed and closed on outfeed and yes they are using it on the heat seals. We did buy them a food safe brush which they complained about so I guess as long as its controlled and not left out during production we should be able to satisfy an auditor......

I think you have to follow that BRC classic and risk assess it; yes, you've identified there is a risk but these are the things you've put in place. Document it and audit it as controls like the ones I'm suggesting are easily ignored. Unless you then end up with complaints with pieces of metal coming back you've got a defence for the external auditor.

Might be worth going back to the team and asking what the problem was with the food safe brushes, although the things I've suggested might help prevent a problem, they don't exclude it. That said, as I was indicating earlier, I had a sealing process in one factory which was critical to the shelf life. The team changed the brush spec (without telling me, this was for cost rather than food safety), then changed back quite quickly. It ****ed up the sealing jaws and it took months of investigation to find out why complaints had started to go up. We had to then replace the sealing jaws at considerable expense.