Jump to content

  • Quick Navigation
Photo

Records: Paper or Electronic

Share this

  • You cannot start a new topic
  • Please log in to reply
65 replies to this topic

Poll: Records: (269 member(s) have cast votes)

Paper or Electronic?

  1. All paper (32 votes [11.90%])

    Percentage of vote: 11.90%

  2. Mostly paper, but some electronic (145 votes [53.90%])

    Percentage of vote: 53.90%

  3. Mostly electronic, but some paper (86 votes [31.97%])

    Percentage of vote: 31.97%

  4. All electronic (6 votes [2.23%])

    Percentage of vote: 2.23%

Vote Guests cannot vote
- - - - -

AC2018

    Grade - MIFSQN

  • IFSQN Member
  • 174 posts
  • 50 thanks
32
Excellent

  • United States
    United States
  • Gender:Female

Posted 17 September 2019 - 04:45 PM

Our production records (work orders) are produced in Enterprise 21 then printed off for the production lines to complete. The work orders are then closed out based on the information that production turns in at the end of the day. All metal detection records, seal & lot code checks and weight checks are completed on paper. All order and inventory takes place within E21 as well and pick sheets are printed off for orders to be pulled. 

 

QA functions are 50/50 paper and electronic. Electronic meaning excel or PDF's. All food safety programs and policies and product specifications are created and kept in hard copy form as well as a PDF. Anything that is obsolete is kept in PDF form and the hard copy is then disposed of. 

 

I have heard great things about Safefood 360 but I feel our systems are well managed now that I wouldn't want to disrupt that.



Su Kaygun

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 3 posts
  • 0 thanks
1
Neutral

  • United States
    United States

Posted 17 March 2020 - 07:22 AM

This is quite an old thread that is still going on. I'm curious about how things have changed between paper vs. electronic? Is the industry still dominated by paper records? 

As there are many cheap and easy-to-use solutions out there are management teams still resistant to electronic data collection? 



TimG

    Grade - PIFSQN

  • IFSQN Principal
  • 642 posts
  • 191 thanks
320
Excellent

  • United States
    United States

Posted 17 March 2020 - 01:02 PM

I'm embarrassed to say it's still paper here. We have a very vocal person resistant to change. The company I currently work for is still in the "we were just a family business a few years ago" mentality. They are now a global company with locations in China, Netherlands, and various U.S. areas. While they were proactive about moving over to digital and paperless options, the decision to task the 3 person I.T. team with doing this all in house through an access database the I.T. directer created is extremely problematic. The constant down time and issues with the network and system (It went down at the end of my AIB audit and at the beginning of my SFSF audit) has caused the vocally anti-digital manager to say "why stop doing paper, we just need to bring it out anyway so you can pass your audits."


  • Su Kaygun likes this

Su Kaygun

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 3 posts
  • 0 thanks
1
Neutral

  • United States
    United States

Posted 18 March 2020 - 07:42 PM

I'm embarrassed to say it's still paper here. We have a very vocal person resistant to change. The company I currently work for is still in the "we were just a family business a few years ago" mentality. They are now a global company with locations in China, Netherlands, and various U.S. areas. While they were proactive about moving over to digital and paperless options, the decision to task the 3 person I.T. team with doing this all in house through an access database the I.T. directer created is extremely problematic. The constant down time and issues with the network and system (It went down at the end of my AIB audit and at the beginning of my SFSF audit) has caused the vocally anti-digital manager to say "why stop doing paper, we just need to bring it out anyway so you can pass your audits."

 

Unfortunately, this is what many companies go through. It's the same in construction, real estate and probably a billion other industries too. Companies don't hire enough IT professionals or they have lack-luster teams and when they fail they think that going digital will harm them. They have a point though. With such small and untrained teams it will be harmful but it seems like a bit of a paradox. Hope they realize that going digital is the only way. I worked with two different companies in the last two years. One had a small team that does everything online. The other, well, had a much larger team but things were so sluggish and there was always something going wrong and a document missing (documents were scattered between different team managers). It might not be solely a tech vs. traditional thing, the company structures and culture was quite different too but they did the same thing. 


  • TimG likes this

AnnaBecerra

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 1 posts
  • 0 thanks
0
Neutral

  • Earth
    Earth

Posted 20 March 2020 - 08:33 AM

Hi we use a system using the devicemagic platform for training records, forms, audits, goods in, weight records and QC running on an iPad. This works well for us and automatically emails pdf version to 3 people in company and backs up to 2 servers including the cloud. .https://www.devicemagic.com/#homePag

 

 

Hmm, this is one of the reasons why we ran into difficulties in the first place. Our management is not resistance but we actually don't know what to do. We've tried a industry specific solution but it was horrible. I'll check it out definitely, do you know any other alternatives?



Su Kaygun

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 3 posts
  • 0 thanks
1
Neutral

  • United States
    United States

Posted 20 March 2020 - 02:06 PM

Hmm, this is one of the reasons why we ran into difficulties in the first place. Our management is not resistance but we actually don't know what to do. We've tried a industry specific solution but it was horrible. I'll check it out definitely, do you know any other alternatives?

 

Device magic is good. It's basically a form builder that can be used by field workers. Alternatives include JotForm - Assign Forms, FastField Forms, and ProntoForms.  All of these 3 are pretty good. The main idea is to use forms to collect data on mobile devices and generate reports. It's pretty easy to set up so I think you can make a choice between these three. There are a lot of other alternatives, but I found these the easiest to implement. Anyone know other alternatives to contribute?



wtheriot

    Grade - MIFSQN

  • IFSQN Member
  • 58 posts
  • 25 thanks
34
Excellent

  • United States
    United States

Posted 20 March 2020 - 02:18 PM

Again, I cant say enough about SafeFood 360, it is very versatile and is designed for the Food Industry. As with any "change" there is a learning curve but the system is very robost and allows complete design of your food safety plan. We have been migrating to it for about 3 months now and the transition has been relatively painless. We knew the migration would be little by little and plan on it taking a year to fully implement. We started off by entering calibrations and verification/validations of annual systems to test the waters, so to speak, but quickly found ourselves adding more frequent monitoring programs due to its ease of use.  


Edited by wtheriot, 20 March 2020 - 02:19 PM.


TimG

    Grade - PIFSQN

  • IFSQN Principal
  • 642 posts
  • 191 thanks
320
Excellent

  • United States
    United States

Posted 20 March 2020 - 02:24 PM

I have been pushing hard for safefood 360 here as well. Every conference or training I go to, there is a strong group of people in the "we love it "category, and I have yet to come across a nay-sayer. Our company dumped a lot of money into SAP and there is pushback that we shouldn't spend more money on seperate programs because  SAP can do 'everything' , if we buy the right module.



Brendan Triplett

    Grade - PIFSQN

  • IFSQN Principal
  • 511 posts
  • 131 thanks
106
Excellent

  • United States
    United States
  • Gender:Male
  • Interests:Rugby, Military History, Reading

Posted 24 March 2020 - 10:43 AM

We maintain all of our documentation on a computer with backups and then we maintain the physical documents for two years.  seems to do the trick.  The key is to have all of them accessible and secure so that the proper people access them and they are safe from adulteration.

 

Cheers!


  • SafetyP likes this

Vice President and SQF Practitioner in Pennsylvania
Brendan Triplett


Xoinks

    Grade - MIFSQN

  • IFSQN Member
  • 50 posts
  • 12 thanks
9
Neutral

  • United States
    United States

Posted 27 April 2020 - 06:15 PM

Just to toss in a comment here.  Most of our records are still paper, something I'd like to change eventually.  However, that said - we dedicate time to scanning in all of our records.  (Based originally on our SQF consultant's note that it was the only way to assure the documents were stored 'securely' without risk of being destroyed in a fire, etc.) 

 

It's been a boon in a lot of ways.  Any complaints it takes just moments to get to our data, I can tell if we have all of our records from each month at a glance, etc.   It's made audits go significantly faster.  Any complaint used to involve going upstairs and digging out the packet, now I can even troubleshoot calls on the phone with a  customer.  

 

If I ever leave this job, I'll take that with me. 



Barry @ Safefood 360°

    Grade - Active

  • Corporate Sponsor
  • 24 posts
  • 7 thanks
5
Neutral

  • Ireland
    Ireland
  • Gender:Male

Posted 20 July 2020 - 09:04 AM

Device magic is good. It's basically a form builder that can be used by field workers. Alternatives include JotForm - Assign Forms, FastField Forms, and ProntoForms.  All of these 3 are pretty good. The main idea is to use forms to collect data on mobile devices and generate reports. It's pretty easy to set up so I think you can make a choice between these three. There are a lot of other alternatives, but I found these the easiest to implement. Anyone know other alternatives to contribute?

We use JotForm for capturing requests to see demonstrations of our software. It's a very simple tool and quite cost effective with simple reporting functionality, though I don't think it would be very appropriate for food safety, especially at scale considering the growing requirements for enhanced data analysis. If someone does use it for food safety I'd be very interested in seeing how it is deployed and what they think the benefits are. 

Obviously, as others in this thread have said, for paperless solutions food safety solutions - we would use our own software if we manufactured anything  :smile:


  • SafetyP likes this

mgourley

    Grade - FIFSQN

  • IFSQN Fellow
  • 1,403 posts
  • 997 thanks
274
Excellent

  • United States
    United States
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Plant City, FL
  • Interests:Cooking, golf, firearms, food safety and sanitation.

Posted 18 December 2020 - 11:36 PM

I have been pushing hard for safefood 360 here as well. Every conference or training I go to, there is a strong group of people in the "we love it "category, and I have yet to come across a nay-sayer. Our company dumped a lot of money into SAP and there is pushback that we shouldn't spend more money on seperate programs because  SAP can do 'everything' , if we buy the right module.

 

We have had several "virtual audits" recently by prospective customers where I use SF360 to show how we use it. The comments from the auditors have been routinely positive.

 

Marshall


Edited by mgourley, 18 December 2020 - 11:36 PM.

  • SafetyP likes this

esali

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 3 posts
  • 0 thanks
1
Neutral

  • United States
    United States

Posted 16 March 2021 - 02:18 PM

At the facility I work at, we do both papers and electronic. We have a double copy of everything. I think it's best to say to have both, especially for audits. The auditor we had for SQF liked that we had a binder filled with all of the information he needed so he can go through it himself instead of waiting on us to look it up on the computer. If he needed a file, or needed more information to see what it was, we would look it up quick on our computers.

Also another good reason for both is if the computer crashes, or doesn't save the information, you have your paper copies to help out with it. :spoton:



cliffjackie369

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 2 posts
  • 0 thanks
0
Neutral

Posted 16 March 2021 - 02:40 PM

we basically store everything in electronic form, but of course there are many paper documents, such as labor books and contracts, nondisclosure agreements (both in electronic and text formats), various documents on the rules that must be observed at work. but what relates specifically to the work process, all sorts of standards, and so on, in electronic.



Alexis M

    Grade - Active

  • IFSQN Active
  • 18 posts
  • 6 thanks
4
Neutral

  • United States
    United States

Posted 03 August 2022 - 03:46 PM

We use the Redzone app. All Quality's and one machine operator from each line has an iPad. Through this iPad we complete all of our checks. It gives you a lot of data like it tells you how your lines are doing at any given point, if  its down tells you what its for how long etc along with packaging data and production rates. Im finding new things every day i can do with this thing. I absolutely LOVE it. If your interested google RedZone Software  and you will see all the good stuff :)


Edited by Alexis M, 03 August 2022 - 03:51 PM.


SafetyP

    Grade - AIFSQN

  • IFSQN Associate
  • 36 posts
  • 8 thanks
7
Neutral

  • United States
    United States
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:United States
  • Interests:Safety Systems & Quality
    Art, Music and Beach Therapy

Posted 06 September 2022 - 07:25 PM

Hi, 

 

We currently do both, electronic and paper. All paper documents are scanned into a drive and the hard copies are saved for a specified amount of time in storage. The drive is backed up by the cloud (Iventure) they also work with the Process Pro ERP system. Honestly, these systems together make it so much easier to pull documents during the audits, we also have login credentials for each user. Documents are easily accessible and you can pull just about any report to trend data.  I absolutely love it. 

I remember the days of building binders for my SQF audit, pulling each paper document and signing each one manually.  :headhurts:It was never easy.     

ERP - ProcessPro – Process Mapping from a Single Platform

iVenture Solutions - iVenture Solutions - Managed IT Support

 

Best of luck! 





Share this

0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users