Documenting power outtages and other disasters
Hi all!
I have a few questions regarding a recent issue we had at our plant. A power line went down due to a minimal amount of snow and we lost power in the warehouse for a few days. While we followed the Business Continuity Plan and had no issues with our product (dry tea) or our employees, I am not sure how to proceed documenting this. My SQF consultant has not given me any sort of "Accident Reprt" or anything like that, but I am sure under SQF, I need to document this happening.
So, to summarize --- What documents need to be filled when the power fails or other natural occurring disasters do in fact occur?
Thanks all!
~Wayne Fiorelli
What I have done in the past was simply typing up what happened in paragraph form. Within this, I covered all the steps that were taken, i.e. product temperature concerns, employee safety concerns, etc. As long as you are covering what your BCP states, it should be sufficient. Hope this helps.
Is it a severe power outage or just an interruption? If you are consistent, a recording in a daily agenda might be enough, if it was just power went down for 10mins or single phase was lost (I have experienced this in the past and it worked). It could also depend on how you set it up in the BCP where as anything under an hour is not recorded but if power is lost for more than an hour an incident report is filled out.
This was a severe power outage. The power was out for 3 days. We worked by flashlight for a few hours. haha. I'm surprised there is no more official documentation than this when I feel like all I do around here is fill out documents. I will do a write up and ask my consultant if it's enough. Thanks all.
For everyday events most of our clients simply maintain logs.
I doubt that you will ever have an auditor ask for the log but they will review your BCP and check for your annual exercise.