Hello everyone,
I enjoy browsing the site for help with many issues that I am encountering as a QA, IFS PACsecure coordinator, and several other hats I wear on the job daily.
We are a small flexible packaging manufacturer (about 40 employees) and we are working toward our IFS PACsecure certification. There are so many questions that have come up, I have only been with the company a little over a year. They have always had GMP 3rd party audits, so going for this certification is rather interesting. I get the whole, "Well we never had to do that before, why start now?", or "We can explain our way out of having to do that, right?" To which I answer, not the same standards as GMP, the auditor is going to look more deeply into why and how things are done around here.
On to the calibration issue, we just recently had our floor scale calibrate (or checked). The scale came out accurate. So at least now we have documentation that states it is accurate. We also sent out our 20# weight for calibration, so we have documentation on that also. The 20# weight is used for in-house calibration.
We have the floor scale, a small shipping scale, a tensile tester and an oxygen barrier tester. Does any one have any suggestions on frequency of outside calibrations on these instruments? And do the micrometers used on the production floor need to be calibrated (internal or external) if yes, how frequently?
Our current schedule:
Floor scale: External - annually, Internally - monthly (spot check, documented)
small shipping scale: internally - monthly (documented on maintenance system)
tensile tester: internally - monthly
Oxygen barrier tester: internally - every 3 months
micrometers: ?
Any help, suggestions and/ or ideas would go a long way in helping us out. Some good reasoning behind suggestions will also help when making my case to management.
Thank you,
Nita