Hi Mark! Happy Holidays!
I would work on you in-house audits and try refining your programs i.e. every month pick a pre-requisite like pest management or food defense or crisi management. It's always good to be performing verification and validation on these programs, on your CCPs and on your food safety plans.
Hope this helps, cheers!
I have something similar set up for the new year, so I think I will follow through with that. I have sections of the food safety manual delegated to each month for review/verification. This helps to know I am on the right track.
Hi Mark,
In my role as the SQF practitioner, I handle customer document requests, fill out supplier approval forms, write statements, organize COAs and other documents from our suppliers, organize our internal documents and come up with better methods of organizing product information, handle consumer complaints, answer my team's technical questions, do R&D and NPD projects, and work with the sales team to provide customers with documents and information about potential products as well as answer their product questions. I do a lot of cross-functioning in my role as I am in a small office. Hope that gives you an idea of what is possible.
That sounds like a pretty good day! I am hoping to encourage my company to develop or provide more products to customers since it will give me more things to work on, improve and help the company grow (I never thought I would want more work!). We sell processed raw produce... so not a whole lot of R&D going on. I know we are going to be extending our equipment and getting a metal detector so some changes and expansions are underway. What are NPD projects?
Mark V.,
Sounds like we are both in similar positions. I am with a medium-sized company that is SQF certified. After taking over the QA Manager position I spent about 6-months revising the entire food safety program. Previously the documents were poorly done and were very difficult to find/comprehend. I took it upon myself to update each document for ease-of-use and comprehension. Now that I am almost done with this task I will probably move on to revising the internal audit program, and force myself to continue updating programs/policies until they are 100% solid and complete. When I am not working on documents updates, I am either reviewing quality documents, answering supplier questionnaires, reviewing new product labels, or managing the food safety system (pest control, sampling, complaints, etc.). I do agree with you though, some days can be pretty slow.
Yes we are very much in the same boat! It is comforting to know that I am not alone in this. This is my first position taking on a food safety system so I was not given much direction or expectation of what my day to day would entail.
Thank you all for the responses, they help a lot! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! :)
Mark