You may still be figuring out how to get your company FSMA ready with minimal cost or disruption to business. You’re not alone. In a recent survey of more than 400 food processors and manufacturers, 68 percent said they were “somewhat ready” for FSMA.* A group of food processors and manufacturers have put in place four key components to ensure FSMA readiness and the ability to meet market demands—while minimizing costs and maximizing profitability:
1. HACCP Support
Not only must you provide documented HACCP plans with corrective/preventative actions—and maintain these records for a minimum of two years—but you also need to ensure that you automate the tracking and reporting process. To ensure efficient and effective compliance, that means automated electronic document controls, electronic signatures, workflow management, and critical control point alerts as well as statistical process controls (SPC) for easy collection of quality data. Does your HACCP support plan still require manual intervention? If so, it could cost your company.
2. Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM)
Control of plant floor activities is a key to your overall efficiency. Making sure that you track production, scheduling, scaling, and rejections gives you insight into how your operations can improve or maintain processes. You also want to track overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) to avoid costly breakdowns, develop a knowledge base of technical experience, respond quickly to maintenance problems, and maximize productivity.
But does your system include human-machine interface (HMI) and machine/equipment integration (SCADA) functionality? These capabilities help you better manage inventory by tracking consumed ingredients and inter-mediate inventory in real time—improving your ability to meet FSMA compliance and your operations.
3. Traceability and Recall Management
With the number of audits and recalls on the rise, your company must track every ingredient from receipt through finished product delivery, at least one-up and one-back in the supply chain. With automated control processes in place, you can immediately address any quality issues. Here’s a typical scenario:
The distributor or customer logs into the system and creates a problem report, noting the unique identification number, batch number, or barcode scan. The problem ticket triggers an alert inside the system. Quality automatically receives the ticket, along with a complete traceability path for the problem product, including all ingredients.
The system performs a root-cause analysis and identifies the problem. All ingredients within the identified batch are quarantined within the system. All inventory not yet consumed and all finished goods still in stock are quarantined. Any shipped products are identified for recall and notifications are immediately sent to all distributors and customers.
This speedy response meets mandated turnaround times and notification requirements.
4. Cloud ERP for Manufacturing
By definition, an ERP system covers all facets of a business. And because ERP systems have their origin in the more industrial manufacturing industries, many are not well suited for the food and beverage-processing environment. You want a true cloud ERP solution that links all functions you perform as a food processor and manufacturer together seamlessly without the need for duplicate data entry. No patched together disparate systems, but one that will consolidate various spreadsheets and reports. With a cloud-based ERP, you no longer need to budget for hefty maintenance costs or legions of IT resources. You can focus on your business, not on making sure your ERP is up to date or integrated with other critical systems.
In a cloud manufacturing ERP system, data can be accessed and correlated at any time and from anywhere since it is kept online and readily available with appropriate security controls. Your customers, distributors, and suppliers can all access data you enable them to for seamless communications and corrective action tracking. There is no limit to the information that can be stored online. In the case of an audit, your company has access to all required documentation which can easily be pulled right from the system – in hours or less, as opposed to days or weeks.
Wrapping Up Inventory Traceability and Mock Recalls
With the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, users can monitor standardized, automated quality control and compliance to see which internal and external audits have been completed, when they were performed, and by whom. Mock recalls are conducted in seven minutes and all documentation gets sent to a customer in under an hour—a process that previously took several people and several days to complete.
With all four components in place—some of which you may already have—you gain peace of mind. You now have a solid foundation to face not only today’s challenges, but also whatever comes next in regulatory enforcement and customer demands.
Learn more. Watch a demonstration now.
* Labs, Wayne. Are you ready for the FSMA final rules? FoodEngineering.com. http://www.foodengineeringmag.com/articles/95479-are-you-ready-for-the-fsma-final-rules