FIVE: A Prime Number in Your Sanitation Program

When a plant is seeking to assess, improve or create a sanitation program, there seems to be a consensus among industry experts that five is the magic number. There are:
5 key challenges that processors face;
5 steps to assessing for improvement;
5 S’s in organization and standardization.

5 Key Challenges. “When you are customer oriented, you want to make sure your food safety and food defense are paramount,” said Tom Rowland, vice president of sales and marketing for Team Cleaning Solutions. Unfortunately, development of a clear and precise sanitation program can be a complex initiative in the food industry, with the five key challenges being:

1. The written program. Inadequate, incomplete or vague writing of the sanitation program can quickly lead to breakdowns in implementation and consistency, leaving areas open to contamination. This can be particularly true with high-risk ingredients or areas. “There’s a scientific approach to looking at your highest risk areas, then working a program around that,” said Ryan Black, director of industrial and facilities services at Capital Contractors.

2. Employee training and communication. The people element is critical in the management of a plant’s day-to-day cleaning, Black said, yet it can also be the greatest challenge. Employees need to have a strong understanding not only of the basics of the cleaning program, but also of all potential risk, he said. Too often it is the newest person who is put on cleaning duty. And this is where plants often have difficulty. “They struggle on the people side.”

In addition, Rowland said, challenges arise in plants from inconsistent training, so that sanitation levels may vary from person to person or shift to shift.

3. Efficient time management. Too often, cleaning processes are not efficient and procedures not optimized, Rowland said. “It is important to make sure that cleaning and sanitation are allowed an adequate amount of time.” But because cleaning and sanitation create downtime, it’s often a choice of production vs. sanitation. “That’s a constant challenge that food processing companies face,” Rowland said. “And that’s where companies get into trouble.”

4. Monitoring and validation. In the same way, while all cleaning should implement checks and balances to verify results, it can be a challenge to set aside the time for such monitoring and verification, Rowland said.

In fact, a key area with which many plants have the greatest struggle is in maintaining consistency in the cleaning program, Black said. Yet consistency is a critical aspect in controlling risk.

5. Chemical management. When a sanitation program is run completely in-house, it is critical to implement controls for the chemical supplies that are used, including management of the supply chain, controlling chemical access with correct and locked storage and ensuring correct usage. “Having strong controls on the chemical supply chain and chemical management is important,” Rowland said. However, it is often a challenge in food plants because, he explained, “They don’t always look to or realize that they can control it.”

5 Steps in Assessment. When assessing a current sanitation program or plans for implementation, a plant should look at five areas of greatest risk. Although each plant is unique and will have varying critical components, the following five areas should be included in any assessment, with focus on the processing facility and conditions:

1. Raw/incoming goods. The first step of any assessment is that where initial risk could originate. Every facility should look at raw and incoming goods from a standpoint of traceability, and evaluation of any potential risk from external components, Black explained. To ensure suppliers are meeting your sanitation standards, the food manufacturer should require copies of sanitation records and make periodic visits to the supplier facilities.

2. Environmental risk. Are contamination prevention practices and procedures included throughout the plant environment? For example, are precautions in place to prevent workers—or visitors—from tracking in external contamination on their shoes? “It all goes back to the HACCP plan—ensuring strategies against all risks and ensuring you have minimized what could potentially come into the facility,” Rowland said. “Do you have appropriate checks and balances for verification?”

3. Cross contamination. Is separation maintained between areas within the plant to prevent cross contamination from occurring? Do you incorporate and monitor visible differentiation between areas? For example, “In packaging, you don’t want to use the same tool as where you are producing soup, or where meat processing is going on—or in the restrooms,” said Charlie Coward, marketing and export sales manager of Hill Brush. One method of differentiation is that of color coding of employee wear and tools. No matter how many languages are spoken in a plant, Coward said “the one language that everyone understands is color.”

4. Facility engineering /equipment. Once the first three assessments are conducted, the plant should consider the engineering and design of its facility and equipment, “then evaluate how you would clean based on that,” Black said. For example, if items are stored outside, the contamination risk needs to be taken into consideration and worked into the sanitation program.

5. Sanitation. Again considering all of the above, what are the current methods of cleaning and sanitation? Are you using the right equipment, chemicals and processes? And are they working? Or are there areas of risk? This final step of assessment ties everything together and brings it all full circle. “The five areas are very critical to their process, because it is very much focused on HACCP which is full circle,” Black said, adding, “There’s a direct correlation between supporting a company’s HACCP and their sanitation program.”

5S System. The 5S system, a lean manufacturing program that originated in Japan, is defined by the New Jersey Institute of Technology as “an ideal methodology for achieving a safe, orderly, efficient, and pleasant workplace.  When an organization goes through a 5S transformation, employees have a much easier time finding what they need, as there truly is ‘a place for everything and everything is in its place.’”

In relation to the tools of the food sanitation program, the 5S’s include:

1. Sort. “This is a process to get rid of any unnecessary tools and equipment items from the workplace area,” Coward said. “Everything else is either discarded or stored.” Sorting is crucial to achieving greater efficiency through workplace design and within the food area.

2. Set in order. Organize work areas for maximum efficiency by arranging tools and equipment to promote optimum work flows through minimized movement. For example, Coward said, all tools and equipment should be located as close as possible to where they will be used and the process of use designed to maximize efficiency.

3. Sweep or shine. Maintain a disciplined, systematic approach to ensure a clean and tidy workplace and well-maintained machines. “When every shift ends, work areas are tidied and tools and equipment are returned to their designated locations,” Coward said. “This should be carried out every day, rather than becoming an ad-hoc activity that’s introduced when things become disorganized.” In addition, keeping equipment cleaned and well-maintained will help retain efficiency and quality and reduce downtime.

4. Standardize. Standardization requires that the program is maintained by all departments using the same methods. Critical for consistency, it addresses the “what, when, whom, where of 5S,” Coward said. For instance, each machine should have a custom maintenance system, typically including checklists and documented instructions, that detail what needs to be done, when, by whom and where.

5. Sustain. “The process of sustaining the system is considered to be the more difficult S to accomplish,” he said. Maintaining a strong focus is essential to prevent slipping back into previous habits and ways of working. One method to sustain the system is to carry out regular audits. However, because the 5S system relies on staff involvement and commitment at every level, care must be taken that the audit not become punitive, or it could potentially destroy any good work that should arise from the audit, Coward explained.

Whether dealing with the challenges of a sanitation program, assessing it for improvement or implementing a 5S program, it is important that a plant know its goals, work proactively and make it a part of the culture. Don’t wait until you have a regulatory infraction or receive a low audit score, rather address your sanitation program in a proactive manner, said Rob Natale, vice president of sales and marketing at Capital Contractors. “You can’t play defense with this, you have to play offense.”

In addition, “it has to be a top-down, culture-driven event,” Natale said. “Unless it’s top down, it will fail.

“That is the cornerstone to the sanitation program.”

The author is Managing Editor of QA magazine. She can be reached at llupo@giemedia.com.