Samples of raw material

I keep on asking questions

The reels of plastic foil come in and wheigh about 600 to 700kg.
Since this is our only raw material, I want to have samples of every batch that is delivered and check some parameters like color, thickness, defects, ...

Would that be overkill? Or is it expected and common in the industry to take samples of every delivery and checking it? On the other side, taking them is a real pain in the ass. Takes 4 min. per sample to take and most of the time there are about 3 different products per delivery. Also, on a sample of 10x30cm, there is nothing much to test on besides color and thickness and a few defects. If any defects are present, most of them or somewhere in the reel.

How do you guys handle this? You take samples from each delivery and check? Or do you do it every X deliveries?

Thx,
Tom

Dear Tom,

On our plastic delivery, we make do "in the main" with Cert of Conformity / Cert of Analysis from supplier, along with an agreed specification, annual supplier screen and supplier inspections. Obviously we do carry out goods in hygiene checks on materials and vehicle.

Annually we send samples for Lab Testing and retain these for inspection at BRC Certification.

During the course of the production run, we check a mill roll and converted roll twice per day at random for such things as colour, micron, defects etc and record these on our daily QC check forms which are also audited annually.

Seems to work fine for us!

Samples are kept "if taken" for the life of the packaging (we have given it a 5 year life span).

Hope the above is of help.

Kind regards,

Steve

Dear Tom,

Sounds like Steve has found a supplier with a perfect history.

I know very little about packaging evaluation but surely this is really a mathematical question ?

For example, assuming you are requiring to actually estimate a defect level, all the well known sampling formulae apply. Alternatively, if you are setting up an accept/reject format, then MIL type standards are relevant. And if you have a zero tolerance situation analogous to salmonella in foods, the significance of zero defects found presumably becomes particularly important.

One other thing is for sure – if you don’t sample every lot , your knowledge as to a specific lot quality at reception may well be zero. This may relate to covering the QA’s back. Perhaps you are in Production ??

There is a parallel thread here somewhere specifically on packaging regarding how much sample of each lot should be retained for potential re-testing in the event of a subsequent problem. This may relate to yr question also ??

Rgds / Charles.C

Yes Charles, the parallel thread is here.

http://www.ifsqn.com...?showtopic=9321

I’m going to close this one here, so can we please continue this discussion on the other thread.

By the way Tom, don’t worry about posting lots of questions.

Thanks,
Simon