Thats a very accurate observation in relation to some companies where HACCP is definitely seen to belong to the QA folks. One of the pitfalls of having a multidisciplinary team is that the various departments have their own finely crafted ways of avoiding the meetings, production and engineering will play the 'too busy getting the lines to run' card
Another problem with a team approach is the time it takes to carry out the initial study. In the past I have found it best to do the initial study with just one or two people (it is essential they understand the process though!) to get the basics down, I have then used the multidisciplinary team to work on this and fine tune it. This way identifies the obvious risks (but maybe not all of them!) and gets them under control quickly.
Organisation of
HACCP is seen as a QA/Technical job on our site (along with all the other jobs) but I think that the factory floor feel that they can have an input. Operators, engineers, QA,.... are involved in our team and during our
HACCP meetings now we spend about 50% of the time on the factory floor. This is usually used for observing the process / procedures and we tend to ask non
HACCP team staff for their views as well, or to explain how we have come to a decision. As long as staff see
HACCP as just a paperwork exercise you will never get the real commitment.
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