2 replies to this topic

[Simon]

Page 7 & 8 of the BRC/IOP Packaging Standard, covers senior management commitment, provision of resources, responsibility, and authority, the role of the designated manager / deputy, and management review.

Any comments?

Regards,
Simon

[Charles Chew]

provision of resources, responsibility, and authority, the role of the designated manager / deputy,

Provision of resources - Does this mean that there must be a mnimum number of workers in an organization before one can consider suitable for BRC/IOP implementation? If so, what is the minimum number?

The mention of designated manager / deputy appears to imply that an organization is required to have certain qualified resources as pre-requisites. If so, what are the minimum academic requirement? Do we need to have posts for managers etc?

In the case of a small organization consisting of 10 academically under-qualified workers including the boss and his wife, does this mean that the pre-requisites are not met. However, the company has no adverse or negative historical records of non-conforming products.

Would the term "appropriate", "deem suitable" or equivalent be considered viable and pragmatic to better reflect the wider range and size of industrialists out there.

Charles Chew

[Simon]

Provision of resources - Does this mean that there must be a minimum number of workers in an organization before one can consider suitable for BRC/IOP implementation?

Not at all Charles, it's more to do with senior management demonstrating their commitment by providing appropriate resources in order to implement and maintain the Standard e.g. human resources, training, infrastructure etc.

The Standard also states:

'There shall be verifiable, written evidence that this team acknowledges this responsibility, has assigned the appropriate resources and given sufficient priority to the continued compliance of the site with this standard.'

I presume this would be documented in the Food Safety Policy although this is covered in section 4.

The mention of designated manager / deputy appears to imply that an organization is required to have certain qualified resources as pre-requisites. If so, what are the minimum academic requirements? Do we need to have posts for managers etc?

The Standard states:

'The control of the system implementing the Standard shall rest with a suitably qualified person having responsibilities delegated from the above team' e.g. the senior management team.

The 6 million dollar question is what is suitably qualified? We have discussed this in other threads, and the fact that the Standard does not specify means that it is confusing and open to interpretation by both users and Certification Body auditors, which in turn could lead to inequality.

Should the Designated Manager and Deputy be trained to Advanced level, Intermediate or will basic formal training and several years on the job experience suffice?

In the case of a small organization consisting of 10 academically under-qualified workers including the boss and his wife, does this mean that the pre-requisites are not met?  However, the company has no adverse or negative historical records of non-conforming products.

Even in a small organisation there should be a Designated Manager and Deputy who are ‘suitably qualified'.

It would be very interesting to survey the Certification Bodies to ascertain what they are accepting as suitably qualified in the field and how this varies. Maybe UKAS already gather this type of information. Perhaps it would be easier to be more specific in the Standard.

Regards,
Simon