New to SQF
Hello everyone,
I am new to quality assurance and very new to SQF. My company doesn't have anything in place as of yet. If anyone is willing to share some or all of their documentation for SQF, I would really appreciate it! I am trying to start with the Management Policy so please share if you can.
Krisit
Hi Kwenzel, first welcome to the forum!
What you have asked is huge. Providing an entire system is not an easy or even viable as our systems are based on our individual processes and company policies. However if you do some searching on this site you will find many examples you can use to build on.
No problem. Use the SQF standards as your guidelines and then search the site for the various items you need which help you build and tailor to your system and company. If you run into a wall let us know there are many knowledgeable people here who can help.
The SQF website has guidance documents on module 2 and 11 that may help you develop the required documents. A lot goes into writing an SQF program so don't get discouraged! This forum will be a very valuable resource if you have any questions.
This is a huge topic. However, this is the path I took to get started and it worked for me.
1. Document Control
2. Management Responsibility.
3. Prerequisite Programs (Module 11) or the Module to your particular category.
4. Module 2 (Food Safety Plan for Level 2) and (Food Safety and Quality Plan for Level 3)
Note:
Records of verification and validation for Food Safety Programs, Food Defense Program and HACCP Plan.
Download the Guidance for Module 2 and Module 11.
This should give you an idea how to start. :shades:
Another note I forgot to mention is that I used ISO 22000 standards to understand some of the requirements in SQF. This helped me a lot to organize the programs required.
Good Luck!!!!
I am in the same boat, new to QA and we are switching from GMP to SQF. When you and your company are ready I highly recommend an SQF registered consultant. We have one and thus far they have been a very valuable resource. Also, you are on the right track- you are here which means you have a whole lot of people with a whole lot of experience. Good Luck!
Another huge component is having management committment. This is a top -> down driven process and if you're the practitioner you'll need to have the backing of top management in order to be successful. If you haven't been trained in the 2 day SQF implementation training, try to do so. In person seminar-type training is best as you can hear and learn from other's questions and concerns and participate in team excercizes, but if that's not possible try to do the on-line training at minimum.
You'll need to have a strong grasp of HACCP, so if that needs a boost, again, a little training will help you tremendously. Familiarity with your company GMP's and pre-requisite programs is also really important.Employee training as well.
And proper documentation can't be overemphisized. If your company's "food culture" is lacking, you'll need as many allies as possible to help turn things around and this can be the most challenging aspect of the whole process in my experience.
A final bit of advice: use this site as much as you can. It's probably the most valuable resourse you'll find anywhere.
Good Luck,
esquef
Just an idea, There are basic programs you may actually purchase based off of your processing type which u just have to customize. Our customer bought on for $500 I believe was the price, and it was the best thing she ever did or so she says, where as my company had us make our own which after typing, printing, editing, redoing, research, editing, redoing, audits, non conformance, editing, redoing ran us into the $30,000 range. But I can assure you, you will learn that code inside out by the end of it doing it my way :P.