Production and its Challenges
The food industry is an interdisciplinary field closely related to consumer health and safety. In addition to safety concerns, producing products that comply with internal company standards and international regulations is accompanied by technical challenges. These challenges are related to formulation issues, production processes, and environmental hygiene controls. Such challenges can sometimes result in significant losses, which have substantial economic impacts on manufacturing units.
Changes in Human Resources and Management
One of the ongoing and perhaps inevitable issues in any production unit is the change in specialized personnel and management. When specialized personnel leave, they take with them the individual experiences acquired during their time, including insights into specific conditions and challenges. A new specialist may not necessarily have similar experiences. Additionally, new managers might introduce changes to the system that lead to issues from previous practices due to a lack of awareness.
Complex Nature of Problems
In all processes of a manufacturing company, from raw material intake, production processes, quality control, and warehousing to distribution, problems may arise depending on the conditions of the unit, employee performance, and production volume. These problems can be categorized into predictable, controllable issues and unforeseen challenges. For predictable problems, preventative solutions are defined. If the concerned employees fail to take necessary actions for any reason, the likelihood of accidents and related challenges increases. In such cases, having precise monitoring and alert systems becomes essential.
Examples of such actions include environmental hygiene controls and disinfection procedures. However, in many instances, problems and challenges are unforeseen. These events are often related to unexpected changes in raw materials, formulations, operator errors, human resources, and equipment breakdowns. Such issues may only be identified after the final production stage or during distribution, making troubleshooting a complex process. This complexity arises from the integration of different stages, lack of awareness of performance and information, or the occurrence of multiple reasons. Forming specialized cross-functional teams and systematically eliminating potential causes accelerates troubleshooting.
Troubleshooting and Ensuring Non-recurrence
After identifying the issue, two types of solutions are provided. Some solutions prevent the recurrence of the challenge after implementation, while others may require process improvements, training, and monitoring. It is preferable to minimize challenges related to human performance by modifying equipment and methods. For example, an operator may need to ensure that a machine is properly prepared before starting it. For various reasons, this step may be forgotten, leading to damage to the equipment. In such cases, some managers might use retraining techniques to prevent such occurrences, but equipment modifications are a better solution, reducing the chance of error, particularly in the presence of a replacement worker.
Knowledge Documentation
Challenges that arise in a food manufacturing unit, especially those related to consumer health and safety, are highly sensitive and concerning. Therefore, whenever a challenge is identified and resolved, it must be documented by a quality assurance unit. This documentation should follow a standard format and include an event history, troubleshooting meetings, proposed solutions, and actions had been taken. It must be searchable based on a defined system and integrated into the human resources training programs. Furthermore, changes made to processes and equipment should be carefully recorded and re-applied in production line change programs.
Regarding quality control experiences and challenges, knowledge documentation takes place through system changes and the creation of control forms. These actions help prevent mistakes by inexperienced workers.
