Glass and Hard Plastic Program
Hello,
I am currently developing my companys glass and hard plastic program. We manufacture juice in PET bottles, so the product is always traveling in stainless steel pipes, hence the chance of contamination by foreign bodies is very little. The highest risk comes from when the product is in the preparation and buffer tanks (which have lids), and even then the risk of materials breaking and comming in to the produc comes mostly from ceiling lamps.
Knowing this, should the program include just the lamps of every single glass and hard plastic present in the processing area?
Thank you very uch
sure
#StandardResponse Risk assess. You need to start from a brittles register of the parts of the plant where product and packaging exists. This includes your warehouses. Once you've completed it, get a colleague to repeat it - I recently found a whole room that we'd missed and the plant has been operational for 10 years! Even auditors missed it. This included pretty much everything. Now risk assess the different parts of the operation. Which parts are more susceptible to contamination? What frequency should items be inspected?
Stuff close to the operations might be assessed at start-up, further away might be weekly, and low risk might be monthly. We follow this approach and have not had any problems.
Should include every piece of glass and brittle plastic that could get into the machines and/or your product. This would include glass and plastic dial covers, signs, tools, etc.
I have previously worked in a whey spray drying facility where the product was enclosed in all areas except the packaging room. We listed every glass and plastic item in every room on our register. The low risk areas where product was enclosed were checked once per year. The higher risk packaging area where product was exposed was checked monthly.
As BrummyJim has posted, Inspections should be based on risk such as High - Daily, Medium - Weekly and Low - Monthly or Quarterly.
Areas where product is exposed are the main concern especially if there is a potential to fall into the product if broken. In this case a monthly check would not be acceptable.
Kind regards,
Tony