10 replies to this topic

[PollyKBD]

Hi All, 

We are in the process of changing things up around here. One of the things we are considering is having the sanitation team perform our ATP Swabs post cleaning/sanitation instead of having our pre-op person do it. 

In some cases there is just an hour or 2 between sanitation and pre-op, but in other situations sanitation happens several hours before. We run baking 3rd and 1st shift, packaging 1st shift, and sanitation 2nd shift. 

The mentality here has always been that you inspect and swab as close to operations as you can. I am trying to shift to swab close to cleaning so there is room/time for correction and inspect before use to verify that nothing happened in the time between cleaning and operations. 

Can anyone share your stories, methods and ideas? Am I crazy to make this shift or are we crazy if we don't?

Thanks in advance. I look forward to your ideas. :)

~Polly 

[Abdullah G]

Swab after sanitation is more better to understanding your cleaning efficiency. Considering that you maintain your environment sterile after the swab. our operation is usually final rinse swab and surface swabs as soon as CIP is complete. Hope this helps. Also If you are doing manual sanitation you can complete the cleaning operations and leave the equipment in the COP sink dipped in disinfectant and remove before operations for swab and continue.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best Regards

 

Abdullah Gore

QA Executive

Orontes Dairy Manufacturing LLC

 

E-mail: ag3475941@gmail.com

[Tony-C]

Hi Polly,

 

My question would be do you have a responsible person that you would trust to do the swabbing on that sanitation shift? If so then I don't see a problem.

 

Kind regards,

 

Tony

[MDaleDDF]

Personally, I wouldn't let sanitation check their own work.   They clean, the lab swabs.  Others may have a different opinion on that...

 

As far as when, I don't swab anything until after the SOP has been run, and those are all on a schedule of dailies, weeklies, monthlies, etc, so that kind of takes care of itself.    And yes, I always swab on Fridays.   I used to swab Mondays, but as you said, the first time I had a dirty swab and we couldn't run that machine that day, I started swabbing Fridays to give us time to react if something goes wonky, so I definitely would do that.

[Mickeymains]

I agree with the above, the sanitation team shouldn't check their own work, but swabbing after sanitation should be fine. Just be sure that no swabbing begins before sanitizers have completely dried. Maybe that is obvious, but there is good data on how badly that can skew RLU measures.

 

More here:

Quenching and Enhancement Effects of ATP Extractants, Cleansers, and Sanitizers on the Detection of the ATP Bioluminescence Signal - ScienceDirect

 

Effect of Chemical Cleaning Agents and Commercial Sanitizers on ATP Bioluminescence Measurements - ScienceDirect

[Setanta]

Piling on the 'Sanitation Should Not Check Their Own Work' train.

They have a vested interest in passing and QA should be the 3rd party to do the testing. IMO

[Scampi]

I'm in the middle

 

As long as the sanitation team member ISNT" the one who cleaned that area, it's probably better than what you have now (e.g. less than clean equipment being used because sanitation has gone home and no one can reclean

 

Alternatively, can a tech change their working hours to come in 1-2 hours before sanitation is done?

[QAKat]

The sanitation supervisor does the ATP swabbing at our company most of the time. He swabs what he has cleaned and what the other sanitation team members have cleaned. He is well trained and has done it for several years now and does a great job. We also trust him 100% so there's that. I also do a verification of how he swabs, where he is swabbing, making sure he checks the equipment is 100% clean before swabbing, and his corrective actions if something doesn't pass once a week just to have that on record. I do understand the other side though especially if you have no trust and feel like they will do it incorrectly because it is their job and they will cheat just for the results to pass. Tbh if he left I don't think I would allow anyone else to do it except QA.

 

I think it is up to you, you know your team best. 

[PollyKBD]

don't get me wrong, nothing has ever been used less than clean or without passing swabs and visual, but the extra cleaning causes delays, frustration, and production is paying the price and sanitation doesn't have the opportunity to make it right. Currently, we have a tech that comes in before sanitation is done, but I guess what I am wanting is that sanitation owns the process so that they know right away that they need to re-clean. I believe it will help them evaluate their process better if they can know in real time that they didn't do as good a job as they had hoped. 

None of this would replace a solid pre-operational visual inspection. I just feel like pre-op should be to determine what went wrong between sanitation and using the equipment while ATP swabs are for finding out if you cleaned something correctly. 

Our culture is one that we feel is built on trust. Food safety and quality are at the forefront of our decision making, and we wouldn't keep a supervisor or manager around that we didn't feel we could trust to contribute to our culture. 

 

I appreciate everyone's input. 

[Abdullah G]

An easy way make sure that the sanitation team is doing their job right is creating a cleaning checklist using some platform like safety culture where you can add logics to upload image of the process and the time or anything specific your process. This will make them perform the task effectively as they have to make real time records. Also, schedule external lab swabs for environmental monitoring on monthly for high risk areas to have a better understanding on how effective the cleaning is. Try experimenting new procedure with different cleaning solutions for reducing time taken to clean, this has helped me.

 

Best regards, 

 

Abdullah G.

[GMO]

I'm going to get on the I bloody hate ATP swabs bandwagon again...

 

But first, I agree independence of checker is good practice but I'd make that a supervisor of the hygiene team if you can.  Then if something is found, record it, so you know and can track your RFT on hygiene then the supervisor can coach the employee, reclean and reinspect before production pressures get in the way.

 

Now onto ATP.  My objections:

• The cost is huge
• The variability of results is huge
• People can get over reliant on a "number" or score
• It will only give you a result from the area swabbed (and when people ATP swab they tend to swab flat, easy to access surfaces)
• The results can be skewed by presence of disinfectants and if the ATP has broken down to ADP (depending on the brand)
• I have (too often) found physical debris missed by the person cleaning AND the person who has verified the clean with an ATP swab

 

What I would recommend is something very old fashioned.  Your eyes.  Use a torch as well and look under equipment at areas frequently missed.  Also use your nose to sniff out any musty smells.  

 

When you design your cleaning process in the first place, do traditional microbiological swabs to validate it.  Do infrequent verification swabs of a traditional micro kind to verify that clean but I am still yet to be convinced that ATP on a routine monitoring or frequent verification basis is worth it.