55 replies to this topic

[abhagat]

In my opinion, CEO is the most senior member of the HACCP team, since policies won't get implemented without their stamp of approval. Although, it is always the food microbiologist/QA Manager/Certification (SQF/BRC/etc.) practitioner facing the 'volley' thrown by the auditor(s), it helps to have Principal as the team leader to get things done! QA Manager might be the person responsible but CEO should the leader. Without CEO's commitment not much might be achieved. Just my two cents.

Thank you.

[Mr. Incognito]

I'm not sure I like the idea of the head honcho, in any sense of the term, being in charge of food safety.

 

The reason is that if corrections of food safety issues take a back seat to the cost of resources required and the food safety team leader is also the person who holds the purse strings then the team has nobody to really fight for the fix.

 

At least if someone else is in charge of food safety, in theory, they can argue against the CEO/Head Honcho person as a champion of the team.  Even if it doesn't get them very far (because in the end the person with the money is the person with the money). 

 

Of course few people would do that because they would be afraid of being fired.  That's not me however as I'd rather be fired for actively fighting for food safety than put out a dangerous product or allow unsafe working conditions to exist and possibly effect the product.

 

That's why I like being a quality manager whose manager is the corporate quality person.  I do not work for the plant manager because that would be a conflict of interest for him.

[Simon]

I'm not sure I like the idea of the head honcho, in any sense of the term, being in charge of food safety.

 

The reason is that if corrections of food safety issues take a back seat to the cost of resources required and the food safety team leader is also the person who holds the purse strings then the team has nobody to really fight for the fix.

 

At least if someone else is in charge of food safety, in theory, they can argue against the CEO/Head Honcho person as a champion of the team.  Even if it doesn't get them very far (because in the end the person with the money is the person with the money).

I think the idea is that the head honcho doesn't take over food safety and the HACCP team, but that he/she takes an active interest such as sitting in meetings, which will demonstrate commitment and help them to be aware of the requirements, challenges, changes etc. This will more likely lead to them providing necessary resources.

 

Of course few people would do that because they would be afraid of being fired.  That's not me however as I'd rather be fired for actively fighting for food safety than put out a dangerous product or allow unsafe working conditions to exist and possibly effect the product.

That's great Merle, hats off to you.

 

That's why I like being a quality manager whose manager is the corporate quality person.  I do not work for the plant manager because that would be a conflict of interest for him.

Again I don't agree entirely with this statement, in some standards it is mandatory for the Quality Department to be completely independent from production, but to me this makes an assumption that plant managers don't place product quality and safety on a par with other objectives.  Any plant manager worth their salt does.  Good quality makes good business sense.

[Mr. Incognito]

I agree Simon but it's like a lot of the safety initiatives that have been put out.  Standards that require that measure do it because of the operations managers that put quality on the backburner because of production.

 

I've seen management that gave, at least the appearance, of running in that direction.  And I'm not saying they don't care about food safety or quality at all.  But when the raw tank is not being washed for 3 days after the legal requirement because they wouldn't stop running or when management actively accepts low quality product going out the door to the point that the biggest customer threatens to pull their contract and only then do they actually try to figure out why yeast and mold are going out the door I become very skeptical of operational management.

 

We have to remember operational management is worried about dollars and cents or units out the door.  Quality is worried about food safety and quality.

 

I like active interest.  I'm all about bigger heads being a part of food safety and quality (I'm so brainwashed by SQF Level 3 lol) but I still think that overall control of it needs to be in the Quality Departments hands.

[fgjuadi]

Here's how I see it - CEOs need to be able to say "Do what you need to, I'm cool with you spending money on that" - and send the message to the floor- but to stay out of day to day operations (QA decisions, not being on the floor - being on the floor is good).

 

I've had employees tell me that the CEOs would be mad if they changed their gloves too often because gloves were expensive - And that's NOT true!  The CEO totally backed food safety, he just didn't communicate it to the floor.   In other instances, the CEO will  say "We only want to put out a quality product" etc etc, but they don't realize that means being late with orders because raw materials didn't meet spec or reworking or destroying product that's safe but not "great".   Or they understand THAT concept, okay and approve, but when it comes down to loosing money on individual shipment, they disregard the quality issues - and if you let it go on long enough, they start to disregard the food safety issues, as they just lump it together with "QA".  Operations Managers can go either way - I've seen some who fried employees for taking too long at tasks, etc (hell factory), and those that understand QA.  I think you need that separation of departments. 

 

 

So I think it's better to have them not making decisions on individual cases - but to have them strongly repeat their support of the QA mission. 

Edited by magenta_majors, 20 August 2014 - 04:11 PM.

[Mr. Incognito]

Communication is definitely paramount moving from the top of the chain to the bottom of the chain.

 

Communication and management commitment are the two biggest things that directly affect food safety.  If management isn't committed or doesn't communicate that commitment then employees won't understand the importance and won't work in a food safe way consistently.