9 replies to this topic

[Mushrooms]

Hello guys,
please help me to give me ideas for business continuity for mushroom manufacturing.
I had flood and fire in past. if any new ideas its appreciated.

 

thank you

[nwilson]

This is not an exhaustive list however all are in my program.  

- Driver crashes a truck into your dock leaving a a huge opening

- Plane crash

- Intentional adulteration by disgruntled employee

- Work place violence/terrorism

- Power outage

- Cyber attack

Edited by nwilson, 09 April 2025 - 11:26 PM.

[SQFconsultant]

I was doing a 3rd party inspection audit on a honey company in Minnesota and on approach I noticed that the entire one side of the building appeared to be brand new.

 

It was new as the building is under the final approach to a regional airport and about 4 months prior to my visit a twin engine plane had lost their instruments in fog and went to low ending with crashing into the side of the building and debris went into the plant - fortunately they were not in production at the time - unfortunately all onboard the plane were killed.

 

About a month prior to that happening they had written a business continuity plan and one of the possibles was a plane hitting the building.

 

If  you are not on approach to an airport you could also use a tanker truck hitting the building or a trailer catching on fire that is hooked up to the dock.

[TimG]

To me it was always about risk. In Houston, hurricanes were in my BCP (loss of power, delayed shipments, facility flooding/damage, etc.) In Michigan ice/snowstorms (power, delayed shipments, etc.) are on the list.

 

I guess now that I'm reading this if I ever work near an airport, I know what else is going on my list .

[G M]

Train derailment can have area effects with various chemical cargo spills requiring evacuation.

 

Loss of water, electric etc. utilities can be caused by all kinds of things, with severe weather being 'predictable' for most areas.

[kfromNE]

We did a supplier issue the last time - box supplier had a fire, etc. Couldn't get us boxes. 

 

If you have businesses next door - something happening to them. 

 

The airplane one is a good call and insane that it did happen. 

[GMO]

Hi!

 

I'd also consider as well as all of the above:

 

Loss of utilities

Loss of staff (e.g. pandemic!)

Serious accidents or a fatality.  Don't underestimate how much that could impact the site.

Environmental issues (which could then result in a stop to reduce further damage or forced closure).

Also consider other non site related risks which could impact your staff. For example, much as we all don't like to admit it, women still tend to bear the brunt of childcare all over the world.  If there's a school strike you might lose a lot of female workforce.  

 

Then the second part of the BCP is what you do about it to recover the business.

 

Things I'd consider would include (depending on the nature of the incident):

 

Control of the situation

How do you get immediate control to avoid further harm.  E.g. evacuation, recall etc.

Does the site need to be secured to avoid rubber neckers / evidence being lost?

Who is in the team, how notes and actions are tracked.

How you safeguard company reputation.  What support is needed.  Especially legal support.

Who and how is allowed to talk to media.

Who contacts authorities.

How you keep community updated and ensure any other impacted organisations can respond in a way to protect their staff, products and business.

What comms go to customers and when.

What comms go to your employees and security staff, when and what is in the "needed to know".  (Over or under communicating is a massive risk here.)

Making sure insurers are notified as they may need you to be in contact before any significant spend.

 

How you get back into supply:

Whether supply can be maintained from other sites.

Temporary relocation.

Remote working of leadership team.

Moving to hard copy systems.

Getting in emergency utilities (for example a water tanker).

 

How you get back to normal:

Site systems repair.

Decontamination of the site.

Do team need psychological support to recover (especially if the incident was traumatic in some way).

Rebuilding of trust with the customers etc.

 

The aftermath

What went well?

Celebrate success where teams went above and beyond.  Be genuine and timely.

Do RCA where there were gaps and learn / change processes for any future and share with other sites in the group and, ideally, your customers as this is part of rebuilding trust.

Ask your insurers to do a risk visit after the learnings to see if there's anything you've missed.  Most will offer this as part of a policy.

[GMO]

Some other things I'd also include:

How you might approve temporary or new suppliers as you may need an emergency change.

How you can pull back to a minimum range with your retailers, you can probably assess what that should be now in case recovery is slow.  What's your top 20% of lines you'd want to get back on shelf immediately and what can wait?

Don't forget procurement of the stuff needed for the site to run but not in the product.  Things like toilet rolls, liquid soap, cleaning chemicals, paper, pens, paper hand towels etc.  

Edited by GMO, 10 April 2025 - 01:25 PM.

[GMO]

We did a supplier issue the last time - box supplier had a fire, etc. Couldn't get us boxes. 

 

If you have businesses next door - something happening to them. 

 

The airplane one is a good call and insane that it did happen. 

 

We once had some seasonal breakable packaging.  It was made in China with minimum 6 week leadtimes.  It was late arriving.  One of the procurement team chased the haulier and was sent back a photo of the lorry it was on with all the smashed packaging across the motorway and the lorry on fire.  

 

Oops.

[Lynx42]

We were told "geopolitical" was a buzzword.  We have a foreign owned company at the end of our street and a power transfer station on the street behind us.  We are including those in case there is a protest or possibly someone doing something nefarious at either location that will affect us (traffic disruption or power outage caused by significant damage).