Is it a good idea to have a QC person in receiving inspecting trailers and raw materials before and after unloading?
Hey everybody, first time posting here. I've read a lot of posts and this site has helped with a lot of questions. I went from QA associate to SQF Practitioner once our former SQF P left. It has been a big change and a lot more responsibility. I work at a Pet Food/treat/supplement manufacturer.
I had a question about have a quality control person in Receiving departments. Our director of Procurement has worked where a QC person is in receiving ingredients department. They inspect the trailer then raw material before and after it is unloading, if anything is wrong they can reject the shipment right away, preventing our warehouse from having issues. Also verify all COAs and documentation is correct. I am just curious if anyone has experience with this so I can present it to my boss about moving my QA Lead to that position, he came from Purchasing and has a lot more knowledge about receiving documents than I do.
Hey! Welcome.
Why not train someone from receiving to do all that? And if a non-conformance happens, they communicate to you or QA Lead? In my facility they are trained to do so with my overlook (verifying everything). I am the SQFP too.
It is not a bad idea to have someone in receiving though. It is up to you to do what you need but most importantly they need to be trained :)
They are trained, but they are not that observant and will sometimes not check the PO enough and end up taking the whole truck load or are scared to tell truckers they are rejecting a load. I'm just wondering if it would be easier to have a QC person there with a little more authority and their main job would be in inspect and receive then our other material handlers have enough time to unload, stage mixes etc.
They are trained, but they are not that observant and will sometimes not check the PO enough and end up taking the whole truck load or are scared to tell truckers they are rejecting a load. I'm just wondering if it would be easier to have a QC person there with a little more authority and their main job would be in inspect and receive then our other material handlers have enough time to unload, stage mixes etc.
Sure I see no problem in having a QC overlooking everything in receiving since as you mentioned they are scared to reject or anything. And that can possibly lead to Non-conformance. If you feel that it gives you tighter and better control, go for it :)
They are trained, but they are not that observant and will sometimes not check the PO enough and end up taking the whole truck load or are scared to tell truckers they are rejecting a load. I'm just wondering if it would be easier to have a QC person there with a little more authority and their main job would be in inspect and receive then our other material handlers have enough time to unload, stage mixes etc.
I would go ahead and put your QC person there.
We have QC personnel in raw material recieving area and they are in charge of checking the documents (COA, delivery note, etc), do sampling, and decide if the goods delivered are accepted / not.
Let's think about this..............................!!!!
I think it is a great idea. You never have enough QC personal. If you have a problem with Ingredients or packaging you would like to know about this at receiving.
I'd certainly recommend a QA, or at least a suitably trained staff, check raw materials on delivery. if there's an issue it's much easier to reject the delivery or affected stock there and then rather than find it in production or storage and have to quarantine it, wrap it up and arrange collection. Plus if you identify an issue on arrival the supplier is less likely to deny responsibily and infer blame on your storage or handling between delivery and wherever the issue is noticed.
Although I agree with everyone, my case was different. I only had a limited amount of personnel. I trained our receiving staff to have a role in QA. If you have enough personnel then go for it move them, if not then consider training your warehouse staff.
I would always remind production/ warehouse QA is everyone's job not just QA department.