Mock Recall - In/Out Reporting

Back in February I was being audited by our organic certifying body (QAI). During the mock recall portion I encountered something I hadn't yet so far in this line of work.

 

The auditor had us do both a lot trace as well as a mass-balance type audit (which they call an In / Out audit). I am familiar with the concept of In / Out and the purpose for doing this type of mock recall,The auditor was plugging info into his laptop as we did the audit - and when it came to reporting finished cases of product and such, I was asked to give him the information from the recall all in a single unit (It ended up being pounds)

:headhurts: After some serious number crunching I was able to report all of the specified fields in a single unit....

 

However... the other facility that I am responsible for does not have the data needed to do this as readily available (our gal/case and lbs/case is right on our batching sheets)

 

The auditor that we had said that this is a typical manner of reporting recall information and if I hadnt seen it before I had better get used to it because it was common and more auditing bodies were using this style of reporting. He kinda seemed a little sketchy though.

 

So i am writing to you all, to see how true that statement is and if I should practice reconciling my recalls using a single unit.

 

 

Are you asking if you should be reporting recovery based on one unit of measure?    Becuase I'd assume that you would use the UOM that you sell the item as. Let me see if I understand your delimia - Say your product took -

 

2 gal milk

10 lbs rice

3 color disks of dye

4 table spoons of sugar

 

And was sold per 10 lb case,  

 

The auditor asked you to report the ingredient In/Out in lbs as well? Or only the finished product?

We are a liquid manufacturer, I will give you a hypothetical example of how it went down to maybe clarify the situation:

 

The way he started off was "Here is the sku# (of the ingredient) that you will be recalling"  

Then he gave us a time frame, Jan 1 -14 to Mar 31 -14 ( In all actuality it was 6 months!)

 

Then we had to provide the following info (all in pounds)
Starting inventory of the ingredient 

How much was received in that time frame - And theoretical production (the max. amount of production based off theoretical usage)

Actual Usage - And actual production (the actual amount of cases produced during that time period - This number had to be less than or equal to our theoretical projection)
Ending Inventory Quantity 

 

This all I was very used to, but then he also incorporated the finished goods that were in the warehouse during that time, this is where it got a little sticky:

All of the following was to be reported also in pounds, not by case I did this by figuring the (total weight of finished products in a case * the number of cases)

 

The finished goods Starting inventory   

Subtract the ending finished goods inventory, 

Add Actual production 

Subtract shipments

+/- Misc Adjustments (inventory, etc.)

= total weight variance

Total weight variance divided by the total weight of the case = total case variance (in cases)

Multiple the lbs per case of the "recalled" ingredient (% from recipe) to the total case variance to get your ingredient variance......

 

Head spinning yet? 

Mine too. :helpplease:  :headhurts:  :helpplease:  :headhurts:  I guess I had just never seen where every step had to be reported in a single unit (even the finished goods in the warehouse, typically pivoting between lbs and finished cases was alright)

I have never had a recall quite like this one - But the auditor was quite insistent I would be seeing more like this so I should practice up. I was just throwing some feelers out there to see if anyone else had seen anything like this.

This is the most elaborate mock recall & is the most right way to do it. Here it is both traceability & mass balance.
All of this to be done in 4 hrs.
If a company has a ERP system in place it becomes far more easier.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dear it rains inside,

 

Basically, IMO, it comes down to the specific item, eg weight/time/variance which you are attempting to compare to the standards requirement. IMEX standards do not usually specify a procedure for mock recall / mass balance.

 

Typically the result data should be arrived at via an SOP, eg in a logically explainable stepped manner,  or via an explainable formula, or PC. The use of a PC can create a grey area where some auditors can be nitpicky but IMEX most accept a "black box" scenario these days. Pragmatism at work.

 

If the auditor can reasonably complain that yr procedure is not intelligible/validatable, they may have a point. Otherwise IMO there is simply no case to answer, ie the auditor has to justify their objection.

 

 

A not-so-rare occurrence IMEX is that the auditor is incapable of cross-correlating yr numbers to their own data units. Tough. Although if you quoted all yr mock times in milliseconds, or weights in demi-litres,  i might change my opinion. :smile:

 

Of course, if the auditor has an equivalent but better procedure, it's worth considering for the future. :smile:

 

Rgds / Charles.C

Mass balance in a recall, real or test is good practice. BRC requires recall/traceability tests to include quantity check or mass balance. You shouldn't be expected to trace to the exact unit but you will need to get close and account for discrepancies such as wastage/overfill/QA samples etc.

 

This is also something IP food audits such as organic focus on as they want to verify that you are not adding non IP ingredients (which are usually cheaper) to bulk up your finished product volume.

 

Regards,

 

Tony

Charles,

 

Thank you for your insight on this. While he had no qualms with what our actual recall procedure was, It was actually not up to the auditor how we could report the findings. The entire audit was on his laptop, pre-loaded, with specific fields to be filled in. Some areas were simple yes/no/ N/a sections. Other areas prompted him to report the corresponding SOP# or Procedure Title.

When it came to the mock recall portion, in order to achieve a "successful trace" the information that we had to report was already determined. At the beginning of the section he was prompted to select a unit (cases, lbs, oz, etc...) and all of the information that i listed above is what was required to be reported (in whichever unit we chose), The formula (to calculate variance) was already set up we just had to supply him with the numbers. 
 

 

 Pragmatism at work.

 

Oh and how...

Thanks again!

Thanks for the info