Designated Manager

In section 2 sub section 2.2 of the BRC/IoP Packaging Standard it says:

"The control of the system implementing the Standard shall rest with a suitably qualified person..."

i.e. the Designated Manager and his Deputy.

The question is what does suitably qualified mean?

I thought it might be useful to canvass those of you who have achieved the standard to find out what training you have had and also how Certification Body auditors are interpreting this rather vague 'requirement.'

Any help appreciated.

Regards,
Simon

Dear Simon,
We have just had our 3rd BRC/IOP audit having operated to the standard for some 12 months.
We have a minor CAR........."There is no evidence to verify that the management personnel responsible for the implementation of the BRC requirements have been suitably trained".
Does previous experience (including seminars) satisfy this rather vague requirement of "suitably qualified person".
I would be very interested to learn from anyone their thoughts/opinions.

Thanks,
PG

It appears, as woth most 'standards' as the implemetation and auditing matures all of the little minutae come to the surface.

As a Quality Manager, I do not have a formal quality training, except for the audit training!!

As with many things, a demonstration of knowledge of the industry and the application of the standard, and of the customers requirements should be enough.

Is a person who has been in a job for a number of years required to have training just because a paragraph in a standard is open to interpretation?

We all know 'consultants' will quickly latch onto that and the letters will start coming in the post stating their training is a requirement of the standard.

Get off my box now

Chris

With regard to formal training, there has never been a requirement to be formally trained in any aspect, although I did attend auditor training and transition auditor training in preparation for the change to 9001:2000. The remaining knowledge has been gained through seven years experience of the system, both assisting the then QA manager, and taking over the system myself in 2001. B)

For the BRC/IOP, again there was no required standard specified, but five of us went through a course for Intermediate Hazard Awareness training. This was a two day course, which resulted in being certified to this standard. This has satisfied our auditing body with regard to the trained status of the management representative and those auditing the system. :)

The course itself was a food production orientated course, which bore little relevance to the production of flexible packaging.
It has also put me right off buffet food

Mike

We all know 'consultants' will quickly latch onto that and the letters will start coming in the post stating their training is a requirement of the standard.

It is Chris, it is. Well operator hygiene awareness training and regular refresher training is anyway. And luckily enough:

Operator Hygiene Training Materials :D
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

But seriously,

Let's hope the CB auditors are using commonsense and accepting ‘competencies' such as time served and real-life experience, which are infinitely more ‘suitable' than basic food hygiene training.

The BRC/IoP Packaging Standard is due for a review soon and perhaps ‘suitably qualified' should be changed to say ‘suitably competent.' Either that or they can tell us what course we need to do. It's one of a number of anomalies that need clearing up. Maybe we should start a separate thread and compile a list of anomalies that we can send to the BRC.

For the record I've done various formal and short courses including Basic Food Hygiene, Food Hygiene Options Certificate, and HACCP for Food Packaging. However, I think the several years experience of technical systems development and maintenance along with 100's of hours of negotiating with food safety auditors is where I draw most of my knowledge. And you can't show a certificate for that! B)

Regards,
Simon

Who is suitably qualified?
I attended a 4 day course in Hygiene management that was run by ADAS, I also did an NQA course in Internal auditing and finally I did a course 'effective training for hygiene' which was run by a company called authentica. When we had our audit this was deemed sufficient although it may be a little excessive.
However as far as the deputy goes it was deemed sufficient that I trained the deputy with the knowledge I had gained from such courses.