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This information can be used to develop food safety and quality programs that meet the requirements of modern Regulatory, Customer and Industry Standards:
When considering the development, documentation, and implementation of Continuous Improvement within food safety and quality management systems, the following information should be considered to ensure effective outcomes:
Continuous improvement is all about developing and maintaining systems through which the business can always improve. The term continuous improvement refers to an ongoing need to improve the effectiveness of a management system. The effectiveness of any food safety or food quality system can be continually improved through the use of communications, management reviews, internal audits, corrective actions, system updates, and verification and validation activities.
Continuous Improvement is more of a philosophy than a process or system. It requires everyone in the food business, from the senior management through to the operational team members to adopt a mindset of continuously looking for ways to improve processes and systems by making them efficient and effective. In most contemporary food businesses, continuous improvement usually takes the form of process improvement activities or projects. A process improvement activity or project is a planned and structured activity to improve a process so that one or more of its outcomes are replaced by a more efficient or effective outcome.
Continuous Improvement relies on the following attributes to ensure success in the intended scope and purpose of the application:
The benefits of continuous improvement include market leadership through managing and applying a commitment to continually improving business performance, the ability to ensure customer requirements are met, and customer expectations are exceeded through flexibility and quick reaction to customer demand, consistency in the business approach to improving operational capabilities, increased participation from people through training in the tools and methods of continual improvement, the ability to measure continuous improvement through the establishment of goals and targets, and through the acknowledgment of improvement activities.
Document: A document provides guidance and/or direction for performing work, making decisions, or rendering judgments that affect the safety or quality of the products or services that customers receive.
Documented policies, procedures, work instructions, and schedules form the basis of any food safety and quality management system. The following documentation formats may be considered to ensure ongoing compliance with specified requirements for Continuous Improvement:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Documentation requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Continuous Improvement Templates section of haccp.com for examples of Continuous Improvement documentation, record, and resource formats commonly applied within food safety and quality systems.
Implementation: Implementation is the application of documented food safety and quality system elements into the actual business operation.
The implementation of Continuous Improvement within any food business requires genuine commitment from senior management, staff, and visitors to ensure the nominated goals of implementation are achievable on an ongoing basis. It is a step that requires significant planning and consideration of general and specific food business circumstances to ensure the outcomes of Continuous Improvement do not negatively impact the safety and quality of the food items dispatched from the business.
Implementation of Continuous Improvement must include a clear definition of responsibilities and authorities for all levels of participation by senior management, staff, and visitors to the site.
When implementing Continuous Improvement within the food safety and quality system, you may wish to consider the following requirements before completion:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Implementation requirements in relation to their items.
Monitoring: Monitoring is the act of reviewing and confirming measurable parameters of a defined process or product status.
Monitoring requirements within food industry sectors are generally identified against limits of acceptability defined within HACCP plans, implementation procedures, and work instructions. Monitoring usually includes some element of record-keeping, which may be maintained manually or through digital systems. It is important to consider that advancements in technology have spawned many systems and processes which are self-monitored and or self-adjusted when variances are identified. Regardless of the system used; the goal of any monitoring activity is to provide sufficient evidence that any limit of acceptability has been met.
Traditional Continuous Improvement monitoring requirements include manual recording and the application of corrective actions when the results of monitoring are found to be outside acceptable limits. Corrective Actions should also generally be strongly linked to the monitoring process where applied to ensure full traceability of the applied actions.
Common monitoring activities and record formats may apply to Continuous Improvement:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Monitoring requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Continuous Improvement Templates section of haccp.com for examples of Continuous Improvement documentation, record, and resource formats commonly applied within food safety and quality systems.
Corrective Action: Corrective action is mandatory action to be taken when a deviation to the Quality System occurs, particularly in relation to a Critical Control Point.
Preventative Action: At any step in the process where a hazard has been identified, preventive action must be put into place to prevent re-occurrence.
Corrective Action and Preventative Action are implemented to ensure that any identified non-conformance issues are documented, investigated, and rectified within appropriate time frames. Corrective action is any action applied to regain control over a product, process, policy, or procedure that has been identified as being non-conforming or outside nominated limits of acceptability. Preventative action is any action applied to prevent any identified non-conformance from reoccurring.
The outcomes of corrective and preventative actions should result in regained process control after effective application. Specified corrective actions are commonly linked to the HACCP Plans and the food business certification process.
Below are Corrective Action and Preventative Action examples which may be associated with Continuous Improvement related non-conformance:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Corrective Action requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Corrective Action and Preventative Action section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
Verification: The act of reviewing, inspecting, testing, checking, auditing, or otherwise establishing and documenting whether items, processes, services, or documents conform to specified requirements.
Verification is the detailed review of all food safety and quality system elements to confirm that they are effectively developed, documented, implemented, monitored, and reviewed. All food safety and quality system elements, including documented policies, procedures, training, HACCP plans, and their operational applications must be verified on an ongoing scheduled basis. The verification process commonly includes a defined schedule for which verification activities are required, how often they are conducted, who is responsible, and detailed documented procedures for each nominated verification activity.
The general goal of an established verification process is to ensure any systemic non-conformance issues are identified and rectified within an appropriate time frame. When non-conformance issues are identified through the verification process, Corrective Actions and Preventative Actions should be implemented to ensure they do not impact the effectiveness of the food safety and quality system.
The following examples of verification activities may apply to Continuous Improvement:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Verification requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Verification Activities section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
Validation: The process of gathering evidence to provide a scientific basis for the documented act of demonstrating that a procedure, process, and activity will consistently lead to the expected results. It often includes the qualification of systems and equipment.
Validation is the provision of evidence to support the limits of control or acceptability for food safety or quality parameters nominated within systemic elements. Limits of control or acceptability are commonly included within documented food safety and quality systems elements such as procedures, HACCP plans, and specifications.
Common sources of validation include regulatory and legislative standards, finished product specifications and customer requirements, industry codes of practice and guidelines, verified and validated research, historical product, and process control outcomes, and analytical testing.
The general goal of an established validation process is to ensure any systemic non-conformance issues are identified and rectified within an appropriate time frame. When non-conformance issues are identified through the verification process, Corrective Actions and Preventative Actions should be implemented to ensure they do not impact the effectiveness of the food safety and quality system.
Validation activities are commonly defined within the verification schedules and procedures of established food safety and quality management systems.
The following examples may apply to validation of the limits of control or acceptability for Continuous Improvement:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Validation requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Validation Activities section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
Skills and Knowledge: Skills and knowledge are attributes of human interactions commonly linked to competency within any specific job-related task.
Training and competency requirements for Continuous Improvement must be ongoing, including regularly scheduled reviews to ensure the effectiveness of training and competency outcome.
Team members who have defined responsibilities regarding Continuous Improvement should have knowledge including:
Team members who have defined responsibilities regarding Continuous Improvement should have skills including:
Team members who have defined responsibilities regarding Continuous Improvement should have access to resources including:
If your food business supplies foodstuffs manufactured to a customer’s specifications, it is important to consider any specific Continuous Improvement Training, Competency, and Resources requirements in relation to their items.
You may wish to visit the Training, Competency, and Resources section of haccp.com for examples of best practice applications for this food safety and quality system element.
haccp.com was created to support food businesses and food industry professionals in achieving and maintaining the stringent requirements of food industry compliance.