Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Steps Towards Fulfilling ISO 22000 Training Requirements

By Karyn Shields


ISO 22000 standards are essential for any organization within the farm to fork food chain that seeks to be globally competitive. It indicates to your clients and associates that you have installed an appropriate Food Safety Management System. This will give them confidence to do business with you since your products are trustworthy.

It takes the involvement of all employees and departments in an organization to attain the highest standards of hygiene. ISO 22000 training Minneapolis Mn ensures that a uniform standard of hygiene is maintained when handling food regardless of product or country. It aims at eliminating weaknesses along the firm to folk food chain that might jeopardize human health.

By comparing your existing food hygiene measures with the global standards, you can see the areas that require improvement. The omissions and weaknesses identified during comparison inform the curriculum you are going to use to conduct training. There are professionals in assessing Food Safety Management Systems who will assist you with a comprehensive gap analysis. In the absence of a professional, online resources like checklists can be used.

The report produced during gap analysis points at areas that need improvement in every department. The audit team should be representative of all departments. This will ensure that the entire production unit is thoroughly evaluated. The persons understand the procedures used in every unit and will offer suggestions on how to make improvements. The same representatives will involve their colleagues in the department to bring a sense of ownership to the entire quality assurance project.

Documentation plays a crucial role when developing any new system. All teams use these documents to account for their recommendations. The documents give materials and procedures that need review which makes it easy to spot compliant areas and those that are not. Their documentation of existing processes and procedures is counter-checked against expected changes or improvements.

Besides training the employees, an internal audit team must be trained. They need to understand the new systems and procedures that have been put in place and how they affect the standards of the entire organization. Each employee can train individually online or through a facilitator for the entire group. The internal auditing team ensures that the standards are continually met without having to wait for an external audit team that might appear once a year.

An internal audit team is necessary in maintaining the high standards on daily basis. The team should have enough members and preferably from all departments. Their main aim is to ensure that the process adheres to laid down rules and not necessarily the procedure used since each organization could use a different one. A standard checklist should be used to provide consistency. Auditing is not a secretive procedure and therefore all employees must be informed. A clear report should be written with a lot of support being demanded of the management for the process to succeed.

The seriousness of registration audit lies in the fact that it measures the effort of the team in maintaining the highest food safety standards. It is your chance to display your best regarding the safety of the food you are handling. The checklist used is global and every employee must do the best possible so that the auditors give the best report about your systems and processes.




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