SQF 2.1.2.9 - Benchmarking
Hello Everyone,
I have been patiently waiting for the SQF Edition 8 Guidance Documents to be released. I thought they were to be released in July but it is August already.
Can anyone provide insight on how they are meeting the following clause from the SQF Quality Code? I have always thought that benchmarking meant comparing yourself to other companies.
"2.1.2.9 Senior site management shall establish a process to trend progress in quality performance against agreed measures. Benchmarking shall be part of this process and the performance data shall be reported at least annually to demonstrate effectiveness to the quality management system, and communicated to all staff."
Thank you!
We are a food contact packaging manufacturer. We are planning on trending performance with our SPC data in production. To ensure our visual attribute data of our product (subjective) we will have each quality technician grade multiple different products with
different defects. Then compare (benchmark) the grades against each other.
I'm with you - anxiously waiting for the guidance document to be released but this is our initial plan.
K
Hello Everyone,
I have been patiently waiting for the SQF Edition 8 Guidance Documents to be released. I thought they were to be released in July but it is August already.
Can anyone provide insight on how they are meeting the following clause from the SQF Quality Code? I have always thought that benchmarking meant comparing yourself to other companies.
"2.1.2.9 Senior site management shall establish a process to trend progress in quality performance against agreed measures. Benchmarking shall be part of this process and the performance data shall be reported at least annually to demonstrate effectiveness to the quality management system, and communicated to all staff."
Thank you!
Hi sqf lady,
There are 2-3 threads here dicussing SQF's likely scheduling of Guidance material if you have a look in the SQF sub-forum.
IIRC September was the earliest "expectation".
PS- there is also a SQF8/FAQ available but I don't recall if it addresses yr query ??
Charles,
I watched a SQF sponsored webinar in May that had the July time frame. Looks like that was incorrect though!
Yes, benchmarking is often used to describe comparing yourself to other companies or systems.
However, in this case I think it means comparing the actual results with the prior stated goal. If the goal was 10% reduction in defects but only 7% achieved, then why did that happen and what changes will be made? The management review needs to be documented.
We use Key Performance Indexes (KPIs).
Aside from the common Trainings and Customer Complaints we also use First Time Fails for microbial swabbing as well as Allergen/Gluten swabbing which points to our SSOPs and Batch Testing Fails which we see as a systemic measure.
As we view cell phones as a food safety issue, we have started to measure Cell Phone Violations to measure the effectiveness of our cell phone policy.