Looking to expand my knowledge

Greetings everyone,

I just recently found this forum while taking a webinar, it's very informative and can really help someone out when going through a mental roadblock!

As for my introduction, I've only been in food processing for about 2 months, I changed careers from being an aircraft mechanic. Why? well for one, I was not a licenced mechanic yet, and the pay was pretty bad, so after getting a better offer from my current employer, I decided to change career. Additionally, my employer is willing to pay for my education for the next course I decide to attend.

As for my experience relating to food production, I don't have very much, but as for maintenance, I believe I have a lot. Food production and aircraft maintenance actually have a lot in common, especially the maintenance side of things. For one, safety is a huge component for training and remains to be an extremely huge priority in daily operations. Secondly, the preventative maintenance schedule is similar; based on manufacturer recommendations, preventative maintenance is performed on downtime. The only difference in my opinion though, is that I find that the preventative maintenance is not as thorough as on an aircraft. So far, I've helped my maintenance team rework the PM work orders by simplifying them, and making recommendations in the schedule. 

As for my expectations being a user on this forum, I am hoping to help other users with whatever experience I can share, and to find online training courses. Being new to food production, I wish to better understand the maintenance side of food production, including regulations, operations, etc. You probably won't be seeing me in any of the other forums except for the maintenance are, but if you are reading this, I appreciate you taking the time to read my introduction. Nice to meet you!

Welcome. There are many of us in the this forum that started out in a different career path including myself. You'll be able to offer a different perspective which is always helpful in problem solving issues.

Hi james,

Welcome to the Forum ! :welcome:

Interesting career switch. And rather courageous IMO. :thumbup:

As per yr similarity comments, I have ocasionally used aircraft manuals to study risk-based safety maintenance programs.

Charles.C,

I was quite surprised that food production safety was so bland, and basic. I'm a huge fan of aviation safety, mostly because it has been tried and tested for so many years with a lot of scrutiny; lots of people can die for such a small mistake. 

This is why if I were to work in the safety side of food production, I would implement the 12 human factors in training, and going as far as to even bringing in an aviation safety presenter (especially in organizations which have experienced a fatality, or a major incident). Where I work at the moment, there are only 4 factors. It does not encompass all the factors which can cause damage to equipment and employees, but also the other missing factors always come up in other training sources as "supplemental/advanced training", instead of being the core base of one's training.

A big welcome to the forum! 

Welcome to the forum dear. You will explore many things in this forum and enhance your knowledge.