A revolution in international food safety standards?

Safety in the food supply chain is of paramount importance. And yet there hasn't been a single, universally accepted, end-to-end food safety standards-based solution in place: until now. Oliver Cann finds out more.

Early in 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US announced that it had found widespread salmonella contamination at a large peanut processing plant based in Georgia. Despite the fact that the plant itself was not a major player, its products - in particular, its peanut paste - tainted an entire supply chain.

According to the FDA, as of April 2009, more than 2,100 products in 17 categories had been recalled by more than 200 companies, and the list continues to grow. The plant at the heart of the incident has filed for bankruptcy and the salmonella outbreak itself struck more than 500 people, extending as far as Canada. Of those affected, at least six were reported to have died.

Strengthening the chain

The food supply chain on which we all rely extends farther and goes deeper than ever before. For example, a piece of fruit grown in Africa can be on grocery store shelves in Europe within 24 hours of harvest. Coffee from Asia wends its way to shops across Europe. Lamb from New Zealand is enjoyed across the UK and North America.

With such a far-reaching supply chain in place, carrying such an essential product as food, having the proper security and safety measures in place is vital.

A robust, independently verified food management system could make a real difference by improving a food organization's flexibility, readiness and ultimate viability in the face of an ever-changing risk environment. This is particularly true when set against the backdrop of current economic pressures, when there is a temptation to cut corners. Under the circumstances, the need for food safety has never been greater. And yet, to this day, there has not been a unified, internationally accepted food safety management solution in place to do the job.

Good progress has been made by the industry to date. It was concern over potential risks in the food supply chain that prompted the creation of a number of early food safety sector initiatives and standards, including HACCP and the BRC and IFS retailer driven food manufacturing standards along with EuroGAP for the pre-farm gate sector. But it was not until the publication of international food safety management system standard ISO 22000 in 2005 that there was a single standard covering the entire food supply chain.

Adoption of ISO 22000 throughout all sectors of the industry has been relatively poor. In particular, in the highly influential food manufacturing sector, it quickly became apparent that ISO 22000 had limitations. From a technical perspective, the requirements on prerequisite programmes (PRPs) were not deemed to be specific enough to meet stakeholder needs.

Another limitation revolved around the position of the internationally recognized organization, the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). Without the appropriate PRPs and scheme ownership, ISO 22000 could not be benchmarked by the GFSI and given the same approval as other standards.

"The food safety landscape is very straight-forward," says Steve Mould, worldwide quality management systems manager at Kraft Foods. "Food safety standards need to be recognized by the GFSI but ISO 22000 could not on its own. ISO 22000 gives lists of PRP topics to consider, but because it covers the whole of the food industry, it does not include PRPs for each step: otherwise it would need to be the size of an encyclopaedia. Something else was needed to fill the gap and give ISO 22000 the support that was needed."


PAS 220: supporting ISO 22000


Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 220 is a new complementary standard to ISO 22000. It has been designed to address the technical limitations around PRPs in ISO 22000 for the food manufacturing sector.

PAS 220:2008 Prerequisite programmes on food safety for food manufacturing was developed by BSI and sponsored by Danone, Kraft Foods, Nestlé and Unilever through the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU (CIAA). Other stakeholders involved in the development process included representatives from the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), McDonald's, General Mills Europe, and certification bodies.


FSSC 22000: the icing on the cake


FSSC 22000 (Food Safety System Certification 22000) is a new global food safety scheme which brings together ISO 22000 and PAS 220 certification for the food manufacturing industry.

"While existing schemes have a reasonable consistency of requirements, there was no true consistency of auditing and certification," says Mould, who was also the technical author of PAS 220. "Food safety schemes on the market today tend to be owned by stakeholders in the food supply chain. By moving to an independently owned certification scheme, we saw that we would be able to minimize system and audit variations based on geography, sector and customer, and reduce barriers to trade across the chain."

"An independent board comprising representatives from manufacturing, retail, consumer organizations and other international bodies is responsible for the content and management of FSSC 22000," says Cor Groenveld, chairman of the Foundation for Food Safety (FFS), the not-for-profit organization responsible for the scheme. "The scheme's independent ownership should make it attractive to all stakeholders."

The scheme has been designed to meet the GFSI's benchmarking requirements and a decision by the GFSI board will take place in May 2009 as to whether FSSC 22000 is accepted as an approved certification scheme.

Once the GFSI approves FSSC 22000, Paul Whitehouse, quality manager at Unilever and another member of the PAS 220 steering group, believes one impact on the food manufacturing industry could be cost savings and new opportunities for SMEs and niche producers.

"Food safety is a destination; there are a number of routes and you choose one that best suits your organization," he says. "Given that companies are already used to working with ISO standards and are familiar with the risk and management systems based approach adopted by ISO 22000 and PAS 220, they may find it easier to align with these than with other standards."

"A GFSI-approved FSSC 22000 scheme could bring more food manufacturers into the fold, as well as encouraging other interested parties along the food chain to adopt similar PRP-based approaches," says Joy Franks, the global product manager at BSI responsible for food safety.

"The majority of the ISO 22000 certificates that have been issued to date come from outside the manufacturing sector," she says. "The driver was never there for manufacturers because of the PRP issues that are so central to their requirements. This has been addressed by ISO 22000 and PAS 220 and it's quite conceivable that, in a similar way, ISO 22000 plus new PAS 220 type standards could be used as a framework for other food sectors, for example retail, foodservice and packaging. If this was to become the case, then we'd have a more integrated approach to food safety management, which would be a great step forward for the industry and, ultimately, the consumer."

With seven of the world's largest supermarket chains already committed to accepting any scheme recognized by the GFSI, there is widespread optimism that FSSC 22000 will join the GFSI recognized list, says Groenveld: "The development of the scheme and PAS 220 has been a positive process, with international and broad industry input. Now we are just waiting for the GFSI approval and then we will hopefully see a significant impact in the industry."

"We are heading towards a truly international food safety standard, one that covers the whole of the supply chain," says Mould. "This will make the supply chain safer. If every aspect of the food industry adopted one international standard and operated under the same management system structure, then we will have more consistency and enhanced safety throughout the supply chain. With ISO 22000 and PAS 220 coming together under FSSC 22000, we're in a position for this to happen and we may well see a revolution in the food industry."

Source: businessstandards.com/Articles

Six Sigma Training Vs Total Quality Management

Six Sigma Training has not been developed with the intention to replace TQM.

It was developed by some of the most gifted CEO s with a view to make their business successful to the maximum extent possible - with the help of the tools and techniques of the quality profession.

Then What Is The Difference?

The difference between Six Sigma Training and TQM is best described in a word - 'management'. TQM provides broad guidelines for management. TQM is often related to the development and deployment and maintenance of organizational systems required by various processes.

Six Sigma is more for the purpose of continuous quality improvements for achieving zero defects. TQM helps in improving quality, but cannot take it ahead to continuous improvement. One major difference is visible in the approach.

TQM is more about conformance to internal requirements. Six Sigma focuses on continuous improvement and reduction in defects. The Six Sigma project is driven by the benefits from the viewpoint of the stakeholders, customers, shareholders and employees.

The outcome for both the systems is the same, achievement of better quality products. Six Sigma, however, has an edge here. It focuses on a reduction in defects and satisfying the specifications of the customers. Additionally, Six Sigma Training also helps reduce operational costs.

It achieves this by reduction in cycle time, reduction in defects and cost savings - but not at the cost of the quality and value of the product. Costs that provide no value to the customers are eliminated. Such costs may be those incurred due to waste.

TQM is generally an initiative taken up at individual operational levels, and may not be within the same processes. Six Sigma, on the other hand, aims at improving all operations in a single business process. For such projects, skilled and certified professionals are required such as Black Belts and Green Belts.

There are some team members who may be working part-time on their regular activities along with these projects. They aim at achieving the strategic goals and objectives and aligning the projects to the organizational goals. TQM projects do not necessarily need any specialists. These activities can be managed by non-dedicated managers along with their regular workloads.

Six Sigma team members work temporarily on such projects. The TQM goals are set by the quality department and are based on the assumption that the criteria are good for the quality as well as the organization. They are projects motivated by quality philosophy and undertaken by quality professionals.

Six Sigma projects start with a pre-planned project charter and with an outline of targets, highlighting prospective financial benefits and savings. Very often, organizations have implemented TQM projects without any idea of the financial benefits. The focus of TQM is on quality and performing to the standards, whereas Six Sigma focus is on strategic goals - and the metrics are based on these objectives and goals.

There are significant differences between TQM and Six Sigma - and though some tools and techniques of TQM and Six Sigma are similar, Six Sigma often has a distinct use for these tools. It seems as if Six Sigma will be more popular and achieve more that TQM.

Source: ezinearticles.com/?Six-Sigma-Training-Vs-Total-Quality-Management

Optimizing Six Sigma at the Top of the World

Here’s a story that proves once again that exciting quality applications can occur anywhere in the world.

BHP Billiton operates the EKATI Diamond Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territo­ries, approximately 200 miles northeast of Yellowknife—just below the Arctic Circle. Arctic winter gear designed for temperature well below -45°C is standard attire during the long winters, when the sun barely rises above the horizon. Although the setting is harsh, it can also be a beautiful place to observe and enjoy a truly unique perspective on nature.

EKATI is proud of its commitment to become the safest, lowest-cost pro­ducer of quality diamonds in the world. Employees at EKATI are passionate about creating a safe and sustainable business and thriving communities, as well as developing people. This business strives to select, develop, and retain the right people while extracting value from low-value ores. The business drivers are to create zero harm, increase margin per ton, and create an engaged workforce.

In 2007, a new management team at the EKATI mine kicked off a lean Six Sigma deployment that utilized a five-year plan to drive breakthrough improvements. How­ever, as for so many organizations, EKATI was also challenged with accurately and easily tracking and archiving improvement programs. Keeping tabs on and archiving the mine’s various quality improvement initiatives using spreadsheets was a time-consuming challenge—thus the need for an enterprisewide software tracking system.

In an environment in which saving just a few dollars per ton of mined diamonds is considered a major success, there is a profound need for extremely accurate tracking of the financial benefits of proj­ects. Tracking and validating bottom-line value in the current recession is critical and allows for control and the ability to maneuver with a lean Six Sigma work­force.

“You always need tracking for what’s in existence and what isn’t,” says Aart Broekhuizen, business excellence manager at BHP Billiton’s EKATI mine. “You need to see the different phases of projects, and you want to have some understanding of the past performance of projects in case it’s needed for future reference, as well as being able to track and sustain the bottom line and continuously enhance business processes and systems.”

With this stated objective in mind, and after a diligent search of avail­able options, Broekhuizen and the rest of the mine’s quality excellence team decided to entrust the tracking soft­ware portion of their Six Sigma pro­gram to EnterpriseTrack from Instantis Inc. of Santa Clara, California. Instantis is an on-demand provider of project management solutions, and EnterpriseTrack is a full-featured, web-based solu­tion that allows companies to initiate, track, and manage Six Sigma and other performance initiatives across the entire organization.

Adaptability is one of the key fea­tures of EnterpriseTrack. “The degree of configurability was a key issue,” says Howard Pujol, strategic engagement manager at Instantis. “BHP Billiton EKATI management knew what they wanted, and were very clear on the functionality that they desired.”

For example, mine management quickly discovered that the software helped tie together often disparate elements of the organization into a unified whole. “We designed how best to use the software in meetings with our management team, Master Black Belts, and Black Belts,” says Broekhuizen. “The whole thing is a process of engagement and enrol­ment—the belts and their teams will work on projects, and the software also brings in the finance department to track and validate monetary value.”

EnterpriseTrack has proven handy for document tracking, and users have the ability to sort and find a single project, instantly uncover the status of that project, look at the timeline, and ana­lyze metrics and benchmarks. The user can standardize exactly how he or she wishes to track and handle the granular information uncovered in the “Analyze” phase of a Six Sigma implementation. Ten fully integrated modules, including Strategy Manager, Process Manager, Idea Manager, Proposal Manager, Projects Manager, Knowledge Manager, Metrics Manager, and VOC Manager, all of which plug into EnterpriseTrack’s world-class dashboards and reports, offer a complete view into the deployment, from top to bottom.

Benefits:

• Web-based solution that initiates, tracks, and manages Six Sigma and other per­formance initiatives for organizations in a wide variety of industries.
• Highly flexible and adaptable
• Collects inputs from various sectors of the organization and makes it easy to track status of projects.

Source: qualitydigest.com/inside