10 replies to this topic

[Claudia_QP]

Hi everyone, we are now implementing at our company the ISO 22000 standard, but the first objective is to certify the production process. But when it comes to purchased materials procedure, is it correct to include only the activities/steps that involve production area?

ie.

1) production establishes specifications
2) Ask material to internal supplier (administration area)
3) receives materials and verifies the specifications
4) rights down the batch number for traceability
5) Control de adequate storage conditions

In this way I am not including any steps that involve typical administrative activities ie. payments, etc. And the procedure it is going to be elaborated by production area, and communicated only to administration area.
I would really appreciate your opinions...

Edited by guillenclau, 08 November 2011 - 12:05 PM.

[Tony-C]

Hi everyone, we are now implementing at our company the ISO 22000 standard, but the first objective is to certify the production process. But when it comes to purchased materials procedure, is it correct to include only the activities/steps that involve production area?

ie.

1) production establishes specifications
2) Ask material to internal supplier (administration area)
3) receives materials and verifies the specifications
4) rights down the batch number for traceability
5) Control de adequate storage conditions

In this way I am not including any steps that involve typical administrative activities ie. payments, etc. And the procedure it is going to be elaborated by production area, and communicated only to administration area.
I would really appreciate your opinions...

I doubt very much if any certification body will certify only your production area. Certification scope normally refers to product or product group.

Clause 4.1 General requirements:
'The organization shall define the scope of the food safety management system. The scope shall specify the products or product categories, processes and production sites that are addressed by the food safety management system. '

There is an emphasis in ISO 22000 for communication both internal and external. External communication would seem to be excluded by what you are saying.

Clause 5.6.1 External communication:
the organization shall establish, implement and maintain effective arrangements for communicating with
a)suppliers and contractors,
b)customers or consumers,
c)statutory and regulatory authorities, and
d)other organizations

This is the start, there are many more examples. You really need to tackle the project as a whole not just target one area because you are making more work for yourself in the long run.

[Claudia_QP]

Hi Tony C, you are right about defining a product/process as a scope. I am having resistence of one of the managers wanting to centre as much as posible (activities, procedures, etc.) in production area. And I needed a strong explanation or be sure if we were are really not complying with the standard

[Tony-C]

Hi Tony C, you are right about defining a product/process as a scope. I am having resistence of one of the managers wanting to centre as much as posible (activities, procedures, etc.) in production area. And I needed a strong explanation or be sure if we were are really not complying with the standard

Hi Guillenclau,

Sorry to emphasise but one of the main points here is communication requirement:

Communication along the food chain is essential to ensure that all relevant food safety hazards are identified and adequately controlled at each step within the food chain. This implies communication between organizations both upstream and downstream in the food chain. Communication with customers and suppliers about identified hazards and control measures will assist in clarifying customer and supplier requirements.

ISO 22000 specifies requirements to enable an organization:
a)to plan, implement, operate, maintain and update a food safety management system aimed at providing products that, according to their intended use, are safe for the consumer,
b)to demonstrate compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory food safety requirements,
c)to evaluate and assess customer requirements and demonstrate conformity with those mutually agreed customer requirements that relate to food safety, in order to enhance customer satisfaction,
d)to effectively communicate food safety issues to their suppliers, customers and relevant interested parties in the food chain

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION ISO/TS 22004 Food safety management systems -Guidance on the application of ISO 22000:2005 also may help:

0.2 Food chain and process approach
ISO 22000 promotes the adoption of a food chain approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of a food safety management system. In this regard, in ISO 22000 the organization is required to consider the effects of the food chain prior to and subsequent to its operations when developing and implementing the food safety management system.

Interested parties play a significant role in defining requirements as inputs. Monitoring the satisfaction of interested parties requires evaluation of information relating to their perception of whether the organization has met their requirements or not

5.6 Communication
External communication aims to exchange information in order to ensure that any relevant hazard is controlled at one step through the food chain by interaction, for example,
a)up and down the food chain, for food safety hazard(s) that may not or cannot be controlled by the organization and which consequently need(s) to be controlled at other steps in the food chain,
b)with customers as the basis for mutual acceptance of the level of food safety required (by the customer), and
c) with statutory and regulatory authorities and other organizations.

External communication is the method whereby the organization and the external organization agree by contract or other means upon the level of food safety required and on the capability of delivering to the agreed requirements.

Channels of communication with statutory and regulatory authorities and other organizations should be established as a basis for providing public acceptance of the level of food safety and for ensuring the reliability of the organization.

Regards,

Tony

[FSSM]

Hi everyone, we are now implementing at our company the ISO 22000 standard, but the first objective is to certify the production process. But when it comes to purchased materials procedure, is it correct to include only the activities/steps that involve production area?

ie.

1) production establishes specifications
2) Ask material to internal supplier (administration area)
3) receives materials and verifies the specifications
4) rights down the batch number for traceability
5) Control de adequate storage conditions

In this way I am not including any steps that involve typical administrative activities ie. payments, etc. And the procedure it is going to be elaborated by production area, and communicated only to administration area.
I would really appreciate your opinions...

Dear guillenclau:

I think the scope to production is ok, that is what the food safety standards are about, ISO 9001 talks about a process focus, and ISO 22000 doesn´t have that view, even though they have a similar structure. Please anybody correct me if I´m wrong. Also, this doesn´t mean you do not have to do anything else about customers, you still have to comply with their requirements, have customer service, communicate with them, etc.

About a purchased materials procedure, I do not know if you already considered it, but I think its fundamental to control that the purchasing area has approved suppliers and products to be purchased, so you do not introduce variables to your production process. I mean, the specs stablished by production, have to be respected when purchasing materials. Have you ever had an event of using an alternative product with same specification but the production results are different? Well, that might be more important from a quality perspective, but consider the food safety part.

Regards,

FSSM

[Charles.C]

Dear All,

Regarding "Purchasing", I would hv thought this was simply included as required by PAS220 (eg 9.1) which seems to echo/re-iterate part of item 7.2.3f. of the original standard. (I assume that limiting the scope does not limit the prerequisites, or does it ?) Regardless, I would hv thought the necessity of features/procedures related to such aspects as approved suppliers would anyway be automatically covered from validations involved within control measures linked to the process step of "receiving raw materials/ingredients etc.

Rgds / Charles.C

added - PS - slightly OT, it is true that even some "traditional" haccp plans specifically start with a purchasing step, presumably to emphasise FSSM's previous comment. Adds more QA design work of course. hence the attraction of prerequisite type alternatives.

[Tony-C]

Dear guillenclau:

I think the scope to production is ok, that is what the food safety standards are about, ISO 9001 talks about a process focus, and ISO 22000 doesn´t have that view, even though they have a similar structure. Please anybody correct me if I´m wrong.

Regards,

FSSM

Okay I will, read this from ISO 22004 and consider your point again:

0.2 Food chain and process approach
For an organization to function effectively and efficiently, it has to identify and manage numerous linked activities. An activity using resources, and managed in order to enable the transformation of inputs into outputs, is considered as a process. Often the output from one process directly forms the input to the next.
The application of a system of processes within an organization, together with the identification of interactions and the management of these processes can be referred to as the process approach.

Interested parties play a significant role in defining requirements as inputs. Monitoring the satisfaction of interested parties requires evaluation of information relating to their perception of whether the organization has met their requirements or not.

Regards,

Tony

Edited by Tony-C, 12 November 2011 - 04:05 AM.

[FSSM]

Okay I will, read this from ISO 22004 and consider your point again:



Regards,

Tony

Tony,

Thanks for sharing some light, I should read more carefully that document.

Regards,

FSSM

[mind over matter]

Hi everyone, we are now implementing at our company the ISO 22000 standard, but the first objective is to certify the production process. But when it comes to purchased materials procedure, is it correct to include only the activities/steps that involve production area?

ie.

1) production establishes specifications
2) Ask material to internal supplier (administration area)
3) receives materials and verifies the specifications
4) rights down the batch number for traceability
5) Control de adequate storage conditions

In this way I am not including any steps that involve typical administrative activities ie. payments, etc. And the procedure it is going to be elaborated by production area, and communicated only to administration area.
I would really appreciate your opinions...

Why would your organization limit the scope of certification to just production? If I would be your customer I would wonder why your organization get certified for a separate area (department?) only.

I have a trouble envisioning a compartmentalized departmental implementation of ISO 22000. It may lead to unsustainable and sub-optimizing processes, IMO.

Edited by mind over matter, 13 November 2011 - 03:32 PM.

[Claudia_QP]

Why would your organization limit the scope of certification to just production? If I would be your customer I would wonder why your organization get certified for a separate area (department?) only.

I have a trouble envisioning a compartmentalized departmental implementation of ISO 22000. It may lead to unsustainable and sub-optimizing processes, IMO.

I appreciate your comments, I don't agree that limiting the scope to production is the right choice either, the director decided to do this because of the huge size of the company, to have the certificate faster (for marketing purposes) and then to increase the scope gradually to the whole chain (this is possible too, isn't it?). We cover almost every step in the food chain related to egg production, and trying to do all at once, would have taken probably years to implement and certify. That is the reason. Sometimes people within an organization does not have a lot of knowledge of standards and want to push things to safe efforts, I just wanted to be able to prove them wrong, and you guys helped a lot.
Thanks

[mind over matter]

I appreciate your comments, I don't agree that limiting the scope to production is the right choice either, the director decided to do this because of the huge size of the company, to have the certificate faster (for marketing purposes) and then to increase the scope gradually to the whole chain (this is possible too, isn't it?).

I know it's possible, and a CB may possibly agree to this approach, but I can't see the value other than to "look good." Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

The obvious common motive of companies that wants to certify single department would be the marketing advantage of claiming ISO 22000 registration. That is that they would have a competitive edge by claiming certification. I'd like to remind you that the certificate itself has to clearly state the scope of certification and identifiy the actual organization being certified, and therefore, certified client cannot use certification in a misleading way.

We cover almost every step in the food chain related to egg production, and trying to do all at once, would have taken probably years to implement and certify. That is the reason. Sometimes people within an organization does not have a lot of knowledge of standards and want to push things to safe efforts, I just wanted to be able to prove them wrong, and you guys helped a lot.
Thanks

Taking the departmental approach to developing your organization's food safety management system is unlikely to result in an efficient and effective process-based food safety management system for the organization as whole. One must consider the whole system for it to work well.

Management may not realize what they are doing when they try to use their traditional command and control (departmental) thinking to develop the organization's food safety management system.

Edited by mind over matter, 14 November 2011 - 05:02 PM.