[Practical QA Solutions]

Author’s Note: Welcome to the Practical Quality Assurance Solutions column. The information found in this column will come from my experiences as a hands-on food quality professional for many years along with my hands-off food protection experience as a food pest management professional. I will share practical solutions proven to work on a variety of food quality subjects. I hope you find this column an interesting read with educational ideas ready to put into action.

If someone told me 20 years ago that a Quality Assurance Manager would be wearing various hats of responsibility, I would have said, “So what’s new?” However, I never thought there would be so many responsibilities like those being asked of today’s QA Manager. We need to do more with less and it just goes to show what one can do when you set your mind to it. In a world of mergers and downsizing, the hats of responsibility seem to be growing. A QA Manager is a person that assures quality and whose job is to get “things” done through people. What are some of these things? Two of the more important are:
• To affirm or confirm a product or service; an objective approach.
n Assuring products satisfy a fixed measurable set of clearly defined standards.
• To assure the needs of the customer have been met; a more subjective approach.
n Measuring the customer’s expectations and evaluating complaints.
When we look at quality, it is important to look at it in two levels: objective and subjective.
A QA Manager can be responsible for some (hopefully not all) of the following:
• Non-compliance issues
• Customer complaints
• Food safety
• Workplace safety
• Building security
• Laboratory operations
• Employee training
• Audits and inspections

DEFINING QUALITY. Since quality is in the eye of the beholder, sometimes it can be difficult to define; quality also can be a moving target. A definition that has worked for me most anytime anywhere is “Quality is meeting requirements and exceeding customer expectations.” This approach also can apply to our jobs. Quality professionals should clarify their job requirements and their boss’ expectations, especially those responsibilities that are shared. This approach involves exercising good management practices with a familiar self discipline.
The quality professional has an important job — assuring customer satisfaction and subsequently assuring profitability. Being on the same page with the boss and the boss’ boss is an important step to job performance. Note that non-quality issues, such as food recalls and product destruction dispositions, do not contribute to profits.
After the responsibilities have been clarified, it is important to be efficient with our time and recognize that one does not have to do it all. What can be done to effectively manage these responsibilities? Here are a few ideas to ponder.
MBWA. Have you heard of the acronym MBWA? It stands for “Manage By Walking Around,” an old management tool. A daily MBWA can be helpful if done with a purpose along with a responsibility hat. Observing all things that you are responsible for in a daily WBWA can be a difficult task. It is beneficial to break observations down into a “documentation unit.” A documentation unit is a note pad (or PDA) with your MBWA observations and solutions organized in a manner comfortable to your style. A daily MBWA can focus on a particular area of responsibility. Put a different hat on a different day. For example, on Monday focus on weekend carryover concerns (perhaps building security); Tuesday could be your workplace safety day; Wednesday can be your sanitation day; Thursday can be your pest day; and Friday your customer perspective day. A MBWA is not an inspection; it is a walkthrough of your operation. Being visible and accessible to your employees in an ongoing manner is an intangible benefit to assure quality and improve communications.

DELEGATION.Delegation is a management practice that you probably use with your subordinates. Delegation to trusted trained employees can be an effective method. Another method of delegation is to use your suppliers and service companies. Require your ingredient suppliers to provide value-added services, some of which they may be doing already. Documentation (Certificate of Analysis) of key ingredient attributes can be included with inbound shipments, helping you to extend quality into the supply chain. An overlooked delegation area is to use your key service providers. For example, your water treatment company can help you with testing and documentation. Your pest management company can help you with observations, recommendations and documentation of sanitation, building maintenance and security. Your insurance provider can help you with employee training and safety audits. Your cleaning chemical company can help you with SSOP practices. Your suppliers and service companies are there to help you. Use them.

PLAN - DO - CHECK - ACT. Have you heard of the Plan - Do - Check - Act cycle? This cycle is the heart of continuous improvement and applies to most any process. Plan your improvement, do it, check it, act on it and then do it again. If you do, you will find improvements to your operation to be ongoing.
Utilize team inspections for problem resolution, departmental education and employee training. Inspections are common for workplace safety and sanitation but also can be used for security (think like a thief), pest control (think like a fly), regulatory compliance (think like an FDA investigator) and customer (think like a consumer). A team inspection approach is more effective since it has a way of reducing repeat items as the corrective action is usually done in a long-term, more cooperative understandable manner.
A QA Manager has a basic and personal responsibility — assuring quality in a manner that will satisfy customers. The result of your actions will be a critical contributor to your company’s reputation. Repeat loyal customers are good customers and that is job security, even with your many hats of responsibilities.