[Up Front] Invest in the Details

One of the biggest mistakes made in today’s food plants is not ensuring that the procedures and programs we develop are implemented at the plant level. Excellent food safety and quality programs are developed, manuals and SSOPs are written, and expectations are generally well-documented and understood at the corporate and supervisory level, but they are often not realized on the floor. How does this happen?

Years ago I had the pleasure to work with Tom Imholte, the author of Engineering for Food Safety and Sanitation. Tom was an engineer at a large cereal company for many years. Throughout his career, he documented design and installation successes and failures. He took countless photographs of good and bad design. After collecting hundreds of examples he wrote his book. Unfortunately, the publisher wanted to eliminate many of the pictures and diagrams to save on production costs. Tom called me to share his disappointment and asked for my thoughts. He had the option to publish the book independently, but it would take much of his retirement savings. He asked if I thought he should take the risk in the investment, or publish the book without the photos and diagrams.

I knew it would be a great investment and reassured him how successful the book would be. I told him how important the pictures and diagrams were to the content of the publication. Each was easy to understand and, as the saying goes, worth a thousand words.

I asked Tom to name the most important issue of incorporating food safety and sanitation design principles into a facility. He explained that most issues were not with the original design, but with cost cutting after the design had been accepted. For example, floors and roofs are the most important plant design aspects, but both typically get cut in the cost cutting.

Tom also shared that the job site project manager or engineer plays a crucial role. No matter how careful an engineer is in designing a facility and layout, someone with the same understanding and dedication to sanitary design has to build it. The engineers’ blueprints outline every specific design detail, yet they are often altered at the job site during construction. Tom expressed how disappointing it is when project managers take shortcuts or do not include all of the details he worked so hard to incorporate into the design. I explained that the pictures in his book were necessary to reinforce this argument.

The same can be said of food safety programs. We can design the best food safety manuals, schedules, SSOPs, IPM programs, etc., but if the dedication and understanding is not met at the floor level, programs fail. I have audited many food safety and quality programs that have impressive documents, but tons of failure throughout the facility. Great programs fail if employees on the floor are not trained on food safety and sanitation concepts.

Tom ended up publishing his book independently. He invested his retirement money and found great success. You see, when you invest in the details, success is assured. AIB

The author is Vice President of Food Safety Education, AIB International.