Sample Retain Procedure
Hi everyone, I work in a Flexible Packaging Manufacturer. In our facility, we have Printing Presses, Slitting Machines, Laminators, Pouch Machine and Bagging Machines. I am working on a procedure for every process step to take samples. Ex- Printing will take a sample from each roll, Slitting will take a sample from each roll, laminating will take a sample from each roll, Pouch will take 1 pouch bag from each box and bagging will take a bag sample from each box. My question is- how do you store all of these samples? How long do you store these samples for? Should I use a folder to put all of these samples in and label it by order #? Any help from other flexible packaging companies I would really appreciate it. Thank you, Lindsay
Hi,
I work for a label printer, and we retain samples for the 1st pass on the press and finished samples only. We store them with the job ticket in a clear plastic bag and retain them for 5 years at least.
Why do you want to retain samples from every process step?
We do checks at other processes and sign to say checks have been done, but do not retain the samples.
Rob
Hi Rob,
I want to save them from every process step because say the job was laminated, then slit. If there was an issue that started somewhere during the lamination process, we might not know. Plus, the operators refuse to check their own work. I figured if they pull a sample from each roll and label it, when the QC person comes around they can at least look at the samples and if there is an issue, they can find the roll/box there is an issue with? Idk, maybe this is overkill, I just wanted to know what other companies were doing.
Lindsay
Hi,
How many rolls / boxes do you do? I feel this could end up with you holding large amounts of samples.
Could you do a recorded periodic check instead of retaining so much?
@foodsafetyAPP- depends on the job, but for printing it could be 5 large rolls, for slitting it could be 100+ rolls.
@foodsafetyAPP- depends on the job, but for printing it could be 5 large rolls, for slitting it could be 100+ rolls.
Is this a day?
I am not packaging so i'm sure others with this background will have a better suggestions but I can only recommend doing a check periodically or retaining periodically as by what you just said you could end up with hundreds of samples a day.
You could have a simple form that is completed every hour, 2, 3, 4 etc. which confirms you've checked and it's fine, (with relevant production information) or if these rolls/boxes have corresponding paperwork e.g. batch tickets take a copy of the ticket and stamp it to say it's been checked for a,b,c,d,e and signed.
Just thinking out loud here.
"Plus, the operators refuse to check their own work" I would look into typing this into their performance metrics, an operator refuses to check their own because there is a lack of accountability. I would tie in customer complaints and in-process checks to their performance metrics.
If you're familiar with AQL sampling and if possible, you should try and implement AQL sampling instead of collecting retain samples QA could to perform and oversight sampling (maybe prior to shipping) or after critical process at less frequencies which would verify that the AQL operator sampling is being performed and if not then it result in rework or reprocessing which would also be tied to their performance metrics.