Ideas for ensuring an ingredient is never missed in a batch
Hi, I work for a small snack food manufacturer and as of late I have had issues with production staff missing the incorporation of an ingredient during a production run. We work with small batches quantities but high numbers of batches. For example, 20 ~40kg batches can be made in a day. All of the ingredients are checked and verified by QA and organized for easy use. Regardless, it happens (infrequently but still) that a batch might miss a ingredient due to inattention. Production Staff has the recipe cards available and do we train. However, I am interested in creating a tool that forces the production staff to check off what they put in in real time. I am curious what others do. I was trying to avoid this due to time constraints but I do not think there is a way around it. Do you think a simply checklist would suffice for each recipe? Not thrilled about all the paper I would rather have digital tool if possible.
We use PRIMS at a couple of client locations, works well.
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Not sure if my idea would work for you, just in case: we used to have similar problem when operators forgot to add bacterial culture or added it twice, and we started doing double-verification of adding culture. One operator added culture, and another operator verified the name and amount, and then both signed the batch sheet. Though, we're doing it only for this particular ingredient.
It really depends on how your process is set up. Can you have the ingredients pre-pulled by a supervisor? Can you have a supervisor verify that all ingredients have been added prior to a 'no-return' point? It sounds like an accountability issue with production, to me. Can you trace the incidents to a specific shift, and maybe to a specific person?
It really depends on how your process is set up. Can you have the ingredients pre-pulled by a supervisor? Can you have a supervisor verify that all ingredients have been added prior to a 'no-return' point? It sounds like an accountability issue with production, to me. Can you trace the incidents to a specific shift, and maybe to a specific person?
The ingredients are all on a WIP rack grouped by batch (20 batches = 20 groups).
I agree it is an accountability issue. I have identified the Staff member in this case (he actually came to me and told me-which I was happy about). I agree there needs to be accountability I am just trying to determine the best CA.
They typically in teams of two so I think having the other verify is the best case. Just want to make a low-impact tool to enable them to do so. I think a simple checklist is probably the way
Have QA to a formulation check when they finish blending...I do not know it this applies to your processes though.
For example in our juice blending, they tag items that get scanned into our inventory system and appear on a screen as used. at the end of the blend they will check and see if anything was missing.
Then once blend is complete, QA takes this blend sheet and verifies the "formulation" is correctly added, it will show weather an item is missing. (in regard to gallons blended, brix, acid....).
we previously had an issue as well like this back when I worked in dry blending ingredients (protein powders). What we implemented is having them apply colored stickers on the bags to say that they pulled from it, QA comes to verify it was added and remove this stickers off the ingredients as they check it off.
Hope this helps!
We have a similar small scale operation (as in, no bar code scanning of items going into mixes, small batches). We have QC do a pre and post check of the items to ensure everything was used and they have a final amount that matches what the order is for. The materials handler is responsible for pulling enough ingredients for the run, so if items are left over at the end, that's a big clue, as is any weird partial barrels that may be present.
We also have verification of all ingredients present in the mix part of the QC checks for the packaging lines. We still occasionally have issues, but we are able to catch them relatively quickly and minimize rework of finished packaging.
However, I'm also curious if anyone has better solutions in place that don't require software at this point.
Have QA to a formulation check when they finish blending...I do not know it this applies to your processes though.
For example in our juice blending, they tag items that get scanned into our inventory system and appear on a screen as used. at the end of the blend they will check and see if anything was missing.
Then once blend is complete, QA takes this blend sheet and verifies the "formulation" is correctly added, it will show weather an item is missing. (in regard to gallons blended, brix, acid....).
we previously had an issue as well like this back when I worked in dry blending ingredients (protein powders). What we implemented is having them apply colored stickers on the bags to say that they pulled from it, QA comes to verify it was added and remove this stickers off the ingredients as they check it off.
Hope this helps!
Apologies for the typos! Just thinking about the upcoming holidays! :rofl2:
Having the correct ingredients in correct quantities for each batch is critical. This becomes tricky when you are making so many small batches of product. I am assuming that you use primarily dry ingredients, and that wet ingredients e.g. water is added immediately before production.
The only way to address this risk properly is to place the focus and responsibilities where it should be. Lets start with the job functions.
Production staff is there to do as per their group title, namely to produce. Yes, they do have certain checks to do, but those checks should be aligned with their process and making sure that their process runs well.
Checking of ingredients and recipes is something that happens outside of the actual production - before anything is produced. In bigger companies, this can include a wide variety of activities, from receiving and storage of raw materials, to activities such as water treatment, mixing etc. These activities will include "pre-batching" of ingredients. This will require a dedicated person(s) whose only job is to take one container of ingredient at a time and weigh it out in the required recipe amounts. Different recipes may require different amounts of the same ingredient. You will therefore end up with various storage shelves for the same ingredient, but each shelf stores pre-batched ingredients of different quantities.
They then prebatch the next ingredient and so on and so on.
Each of these prebatched ingredients must be labelled properly with the name of the ingredient, the quantity, the batch number, and date prebatched. A label printer is typically used for this.
Ingredients should be colour coded for specific recipes. In other words, each ingredients has its own square colour coded identification label. For example, let us say the identification and traceability labels for sugar is printed on square green labels. Sugar is used in a variety of different recipes. Each recipe is allocated its own colour code, e.g.
recipe 1: yellow
recipe 2: red
recipe 3: blue
recipe 4: green
recipe 5: black
recipe 6: pink
Each sugar bag will therefore have a green id label, plus one or more of the above coloured stickers. If recipies 4 to 6 use the same amount of sugar, then mark those bags with a green, black and pink sticker each. This makes picking for recipies so easy. Even an illiterate person can now do it correctly.
Prebatched ingredients are then issued to production for each recipe. Lets say recipe 2 is colour coded red. Then the prebatch person takes one red bag from each shelf, writes the batch number of each ingredient on the prebatch "issue to production" document, and places it all in a larger batch basket or bag along with the document.
When production comes to receive the batch ingredients, they have to check only three things:
- only "red" batch colour coded ingredients are in the basket or bag,
- if the recipe requires for example seven ingredients, all seven ingredients are in the batch basket.
- all seven are written on the issue document.
This check takes less than three minutes and they can co-sign on the receiving document.