Disposition on Non-Conforming Products
Good day! I would like to seek your opinion on this . We are auditing the non conforming products and found out that 6 tons of Miso powder failed the micro testing. The recommendation of the Quality assurance team is to undergo heat treatment. However, after heat treatment the quality of product darkens and becomes out of material specifications. Also , it failed again in micro testing. Now, the only option is to send the product for irradiation facility (one and only irradiation facility in the country). However,due to covid
restrictions, the irradiation facility were closed and is undetermined when to operate. 6 Tons of the product is still waiting for next action/disposition. What can you suggest to do with this. What particular section in ISO Standards violates this incident?
How do i track whose the responsible for the disposition? Hoping you can help me on this. Best regards,
Good day!
I would like to seek your opinion on this .
We are auditing the non conforming products and found out that 6 tons of Miso powder
failed the micro testing. The recommendation of the Quality assurance team is to
undergo heat treatment. However, after heat treatment the quality of product darkens
and becomes out of material specifications. Also , it failed again in micro testing.
Now, the only option is to send the product for irradiation facility (one and only irradiation facility in the country). However,due to covid
restrictions, the irradiation facility were closed and is undetermined when to operate.
6 Tons of the product is still waiting for next action/disposition.
What can you suggest to do with this.
What particular section in ISO Standards violates this incident?
How do i track whose the responsible for the disposition?
Hoping you can help me on this.
Best regards,
What was the specific micro failure ?
Hi Charles,
The products exceeded micro testing of Aerobic Plate Count =13,920 cfu/g which in standard must be 10,000 cfu/g maximum
regards,
hbroson
If you can find out why it failed (e.g. did a process failure lead to insufficient log kill?) and you can be sure that this doesn't also pose a potential food safety risk, then it might be worth having a talk with your customers about taking it at a discount - it'll be less of a loss than outright disposal, and some may be willing to consider a result of 1.4x104 against a spec of 1.0x104.
The radiation option may pose further challenges depending on your target market, as in some regions this will require changes to finished product labels etc and that is likely to be off-putting for some customers.
If you can find out why it failed (e.g. did a process failure lead to insufficient log kill?) and you can be sure that this doesn't also pose a potential food safety risk, then it might be worth having a talk with your customers about taking it at a discount - it'll be less of a loss than outright disposal, and some may be willing to consider a result of 1.4x104 against a spec of 1.0x104.
The radiation option may pose further challenges depending on your target market, as in some regions this will require changes to finished product labels etc and that is likely to be off-putting for some customers.
Thank you pHruit. We're now requiring the process owner for the root cause analysis.
This group is absolutely helpful !
Best regards,
Hi Charles,
The products exceeded micro testing of Aerobic Plate Count =13,920 cfu/g which in standard must be 10,000 cfu/g maximum
regards,
hbroson
Hi hbroson,
Measurements of APC are notoriously inaccurate and use a variety of methodologies which can give significantly different results..
Rejection based on a single point is also somewhat perilous to put it mildly.
I hope you well validated the above rejection.