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Keeping Track of Dates involved in managing the Food Safety Management Program

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chrkut

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Posted 02 October 2020 - 06:41 PM

Hello All,

 

I am struggling to keep track off all of the different dates that are involved with managing a program. How does everyone here manage the constantly new timetables of Corrective actions, Calibrations, etc.

 

I am thinking of setting up an SQF outlook calendar with reminders for corrective action due dates, calibrations, etc and can share it with the teams so that they can see if something is coming up, but not sure if this is the easiest way, or something that will work for me.  

 

What do you guys do to manage all of your due dates?



pHruit

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Posted 02 October 2020 - 07:05 PM

Each of my schedules and logs (e.g. maintenance, auditing, calibration etc) is just an Excel sheet with basic conditional formatting to colour-code stuff. I can easily set it to have everything in-date to be green, and to turn amber a predefined amount ahead of the due date so it can be tweaked to suit (e.g. a month's notice on calibration so there is time to organise, or a week for an audit, two months for certain maintenance so we can plan it with plenty of notice so as not to upset production etc). Also easy to add an extra stage of an amber-red fade if needed to remind certain team members that they're running tight on time to get their act together and finish stuff ;)

With this it's easy to set up, and I or anyone else can tell at a quick glance what needs acting on and what doesn't. It's also easy to add filters to columns to only show what's due in the next week/month/quarter etc., or only see your (or another person's) outstanding actions. 

I use exactly the same formatting approach for supplier approval/review dates, complaints etc too.



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mgourley

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Posted 02 October 2020 - 09:17 PM

The food safety and quality management software I use automates the task by allowing you to set review dates/frequencies and then sends off email alerts (and notifications within the software) at a configurable time before the review is due. 

 

You can also go in and mine the data to see what (and who) is overdue.

 

pHruit is absolutely correct though. Something similar can be done in Excel utilizing conditional formatting.

 

It's my experience however, that whatever solution you use, it all comes down to getting the people to do the work they are responsible for. :rolleyes:

 

Marshall



Ryan M.

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Posted 02 October 2020 - 09:17 PM

I think it might be easier to do Microsoft Tasks.  You can set these up to the appropriate person responsible for the task.  I think it is a better option versus calendar because it will stay there until it is marked complete, and if you have it recurring it will recur only after it is marked complete.  This way you really only have to set it up one time unless something changes for the task such as person responsible, frequency of task, or other information.



Charles.C

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Posted 03 October 2020 - 02:18 AM

Hello All,

 

I am struggling to keep track off all of the different dates that are involved with managing a program. How does everyone here manage the constantly new timetables of Corrective actions, Calibrations, etc.

 

I am thinking of setting up an SQF outlook calendar with reminders for corrective action due dates, calibrations, etc and can share it with the teams so that they can see if something is coming up, but not sure if this is the easiest way, or something that will work for me.  

 

What do you guys do to manage all of your due dates?

 

Hi chrkut,

 

JFI, are you a :"1 Person" Team ?


Kind Regards,

 

Charles.C


chrkut

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Posted 03 October 2020 - 04:56 PM

Charles,

 

Most of the upper level SQF management is completed by me. We have a training coordinator who handles most of the training scheduling, and Maintenance manages a decent amount of the plant calibrations on their own. 

 

Some of the departments are actually very good at ensuring their items are completed on time. The rest of them, we have to chase down in order to fill in their corrective actions on the GMP reports, Glass and Hard Plastic, etc. 

 

My boss helps with the far reaching and upper management of the programs, but does not actually do any documentation changes, date management, calibration management, etc.  When we find a major systemic breakdown of the system is where he will jump in and drive, and then once we get back on track, we will go back to overseeing from above. 

 

I like the solution of the excel sheet, and having hyperlinks to some of the items so it makes it much easier to check in on the item. No excuse when the things are one click away. I've started overseeing more of our sanitation/flour system/grounds as well, so being able to throw those tasks that are supposed to be done that usually our silo guy completed would also be nice. Do you keep it separated out by tabs for different areas, or just throw all of the tasks into one large sheet and filter as needed? I would like to see what columns you are using.

 

We do not have a managing software. I have been interested in them for a period of time, but its something that would be hard to get corporate on board with. 

 

Thank you everyone for the help!



mgourley

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Posted 03 October 2020 - 05:09 PM

chrkut,

 

If you can make the case, you might be surprised what can get "corporate on board".

 

I have recently completed two audits with huge international companies. The auditors for both companies were very complementary of the system, remarking how easy it made auditing. 
During one closing meeting (with some of their corporate quality people), the auditor flat out said "this system is something we should seriously consider implementing at all of our facilities".

 

The company that offers this solution is a sponsor of this forum. Request a demo and see what you think.

 

Marshall





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