Using Pest Control data for early warning

Hi All

My interest is data analysis and in particular pest control data analysis. I wanted to know what tools people are using and how useful have they found analyzing the pest control data to give early indications that something is wrong.

In return I'm more than happy to give my input into any queries you have or problems you have encountered around this topic.

Thanks Ken

If I'm honest, mostly it's useless and I only do it to comply with standards... I've only twice had something.  In a bakery I had an EFK which had higher than expected counts in an area with no external doors but the counts were typical night time stuff, e.g. moths etc.  

I talked to the Ops Manager.  Did the fire door in the area get opened on nights when I wasn't there?  No!  Of course not.

Did a spot check at 3am.  Door was wide open.  Stupid thing is they knew I would have been fine with installing a mesh fly screen!
 

The only other time I've had something was when we had a drain which wasn't being cleaned and we picked up drain flies in increasing quantities on a nearby EFK.

So do both of the above make it worth it?  Nah.  We didn't need the trending to see it but if you were new to either site you may have needed that.

Thanks for the honest input. Can I ask the scale of the manufacturing facility as I think this is a big factor?

I would agree when the numbers of traps you are monitoring is small then spotting variations is relatively straight forward manually but when the the number of traps gets big then it becomes far harder which is why I asked the question. What I want to figure out is what is the threshold trap number after which it becomes too difficult to track manually.

Thanks

Ken

One site was small, one was big.  I agree bigger sites need better data but also it depends on the competence of your team and your pest contractor.  If you're getting an unusual spike I'd expect the pest contractor to raise it first.

So what do you think is the threshold number of traps (I know it will vary according to factors like team competence, pest contractor and facility type) where manual tracking becomes to hard. Is it greater or smaller than 100 traps ?

We don't trend for traps in any case we'd only trend for EFKs.  Traps are a bit difficult to trend for it's yes / no if you've had a hit.  EFKs at least you have a count.  Sorry I can't place a number on it.  It really does depend how good your pest controller is and in any case, trending is a compliance requirement but I've only ever been requested it on EFKs.

I don't think pest trends are really that valuable.  If you start seeing trends or issues with pests then you are behind the 8 ball already.

IMO it is much more effective to monitor and trend your GMP's and regular GMP / hygiene self-inspections.  Failures in these areas are precursors to pest problems.

Thanks for the input.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on how you monitor and trend your GMO's and are you stating this apply's only in the context of food manufacturing ?  

Ken

Thanks for the input.

 

Can you elaborate a little bit more on how you monitor and trend your GMO's and are you stating this apply's only in the context of food manufacturing ?  

 

Ken

Sure.  We monitor GMP's and sanitation daily with inspections.  More thorough inspections are conducted monthly where we look for deficiencies in our GMP's, sanitation, maintenance, etc.  We review, track, and trend the types of deficiencies, location of deficiencies, and frequency of deficiencies.  IN the daily inspections we correct deficiencies, but we still document them so we can trend them.

Yes, all in the context of food manufacturing.  It doesn't ONLY apply to food manufacturing, it can apply to food packaging manufacturing, food warehouse / storage and distribution, and other food service as well.

Thank you for that that was very interesting. Last 2 questions if I may.

What do use to do the tracking i.e paper, spreadsheet, bespoke software etc 

What sort of scale of manufacture are you talking about as I' can't imagine a very large operation being able to do daily inspections.

Ken

Hi Ken,

we are just certified in Pest Management UNI EN 16636 and this procedures are mostly dedicated to the risk assesment.To be in control about this risk management is very recommended to use data software analysis to try to prevent and focus the external and internal area.Trend Pest analysis every 3-4-6 mounths are important for my opinion.

With our software I can export all data on Excel file and with this I can do many different analysis but is not so easy to forecast the future.

In my last post on www.romanidisinfestazioni.com I'm talking about this ,sorry the article is in Italian for now.

Best regards

Norman Rosi

Romani Disinfestazioni Srl Lucca Tuscany Italy

Hi Norman

Thanks for the response and link to the article. The wonders of Google did the translation for me and I found your article very interesting. 

I think the key to this is the capture of accurate data. With good data, the analysis can reveal trends not seen. With inaccurate data, analysis becomes a waste of time.

Once the data has been captured then great things can be done such as revealing catches way above average that appear normal when first viewed, as factors such as catch period has not been accounted for.

Think I will put together a webinar on pest control data trending to show what I mean.

Molte grazie

Ken