Preventative maintenance schedule for New Equipment, not yet running
So, I am new to being the sole SQF Practitioner. This is my first post here. This year will be my first solo Audit. My company purchased some new equipment and it is not up and running. Should be by the end of this year. My question is, since they aren't hooked up and running yet, do I need to have all the preventative maintenance schedules ready for them as well as any other necessary SQF documents, work instructions, etc. Or am i able to wait until they have been set up? Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!
It's just a new installation. Document when it will be up and running. Make a note to the CB as well. And when the equipment is up and running the CB may need to update the audit with a visit, however that is rare - more likely it will wait until the next audit.
Thanks! Any advice on how to document when it will be up and running?
Search the forum for "Management of change" documentation. Should be part of your food safety program.
Don't forget to also perform a reassessment of your hazard analysis/HACCP/food safety plan if this equipment changes your process flow.
We have not undergo our audit yet, however, we had our SQF pre-assessment audit early last month. We have 3 new equipment coming in, one is already installed and running at this very moment but was being installed when he was here. The things he mentioned was to ensure we had a "commission and approval process for new equipment".
I would strongly suggest you look at Module 13 guidance document under 13.2.7 for new equipment.
What my facility has in place is a Food Safety Construction Plan - which means when we perform any type of construction including new equipment installation, the plan needs to be filled out to include the known risks that could potentially occur to cross contaminate. We also clean the entire machine and swab for pathogens before we begin a trial run. The trial run will serve as our final approval of the new equipment. The contract for the equipment, specifications of the equipment, trial run documentation of approval, and completed food safety construction plan including the results of the swab are filed in a packet. During the installation, we have our maintenance planner create a PM task list and add it to our PM schedule. We also add it to our cleaning and sanitation schedule and our glass/brittle plastics inspections as well. In addition to this, we also have this documented in a procedure.
You can do this a number of ways - this is just the way we do it and it works for us. I hope this helps.