Precautions required when transporting of materials between units

Hi all, 

I just started at at a new company - a food manufacturer of minerals (FSSC2200 v4.1) and they have 2 separated buildings:

• 1 for manufacture-storage of finished products
• 1 for storage of raw materials

these 2 buildings are separated by a public road.

At the moment, warehouse operatives load the raw materials into a van and transport them into the manufacturing unit. this is kind of tedious but it was working reasonably well.

today the van broke and it looks like we will have to buy a new one. I've raised a deviation for this for now but i was wondering if there is a specific requirement to have a van between 2 buildings separated by a road?

Could i get away with stating that the materials transferred from the storage unit to the manufacturing unit are in their original packaging or securely packed and shrouded during transport? Of course we will avoid bad weather and the load will be cleaned before entering production area.

thanks for your help.

Aurélie 

"Could i get away"

What is the means of transport without the van?

It's not that unusual (at least in the UK) for food sites to have evolved from a selection of smaller buildings, so transferring product externally between units isn't that uncommon IME.

I'm not an FSSC22k expert, but this should surely be acceptable if you can demonstrate that it genuinely poses no risk to the product?

I would be cautious about the "no bad weather" thing - is production really going to be delayed because of rain? Obviously here in the UK our climate is wonderfully dry ( ;) ) so it'll only rarely need to be considered, but downtime costs money and that is the sort of influencing factor that can prompt people to bend rules.

You may need to set up a specific procedure/system for it - original packaging may be adequate for intended purpose, but not for going outside in damp conditions. Consider e.g. dry and often moisture-sensitive ingredients in paper sacks, vs. British rain that could start half way into the journey.

For one site we use a specially made "cage" to move pallets around outdoors with a forklift between different units - the pallet is loaded into it and the FLT prongs pick up the whole cage.It provides sufficient protection for the product types we're using and satisfies health & safety requirements with regard to members of the public (which you'll also need to consider if you're moving product on public roads) etc.

Hi Glenn, 

What I meant was could we just not use the van and instead transport the goods from one location to another using a fork lift truck?

Materials will be secured and shrouded on top of the pallet so they could not be damaged by the weather. we will not move them if the weather is too bad (pouring rain for example)

none of the material is temperature or light sensitive and the transport time will be less than a minute as the buildings are not that far apart.

I don't really see the point of adding steps into the process of material movement by adding/maintaining the use of a van.

Currently there is only 1 warehouse operative who does the following:

- move materials from the rack to the door of warehouse

- get down from the FLT and open door from warehouse

- take material outside

- get down from FLT & close door / open van

- load materials into the van

- get down from FLT and close the van / open door to warehouse

- park FLT / close door

- drive the van

- get the FLT & open production door

- get down from FLT and close the production door / open van

- unload material from the van 

- get down from FLT and close the van / open door to production

- move material to production buffer area, awaiting to be used form production.

It looks like an overkill but because he is on his own he cannot do otherwise.

I am just trying to make his life a bit easier without compromising product integrity.

I hope my question is now clearer.

thanks

Aurélie 

Hi Aurélie 

Within the premises, shifting via caged container with proper coverage is best solution for shifting of raw material, finish product or work in progress goods from one point to another. Any other additional steps will make transportation complex and unnecessary,

Have a good day