Best Practice Standards for Dairy Processing and Quality Assurance
To meet stringent regulatory requirements and customer food safety specifications, today’s Dairy manufacturers need to have efficient quality data management as well as product & process traceability throughout the entire product lifecycle. Quality control in the dairy industry is key to long-term success and sustained profitability.
The Importance of Dairy Processing and Quality Assurance Data in Dairy Processing
Controlling the quality of the product throughout the manufacturing process is vital in dairy production. Quality assurance protects the nutritional value, taste and safety of the product and the dairy manufacturer’s reputation, which could be damaged if product food safety or quality was to become compromised.
To avoid product recall incidents and audit non-compliance, dairy manufacturers need to access product and process data integration for optimal quality data management. With instrument interface and existing systems integration, Quality and Technical managers can feel secure with fast real-time access to end-to-end quality data. With complete visibility, product quality is maintained throughout the manufacturing process.
Dairy Processing and Quality Assurance Best Practices
To be proactive and manage requirements for the customer, regulatory bodies and standards organisations, QA managers need to horizon scan to identify and prevent the problem before it occurs. Here are six best practices you should implement in your dairy manufacturing.
1. Product & Process Traceability
Traceability provides a clear record of every step of the process for full visibility and transparency. With increased customer awareness, traceability plays a critical role in reassuring customers of the dairy manufacturer’s commitment to product food safety.
2. Optimal Supplier Control
Quality Assurance of incoming goods is essential and contributes to the standard of the final product. If poor quality product is allowed to enter the manufacturing process, the finished product quality will be compromised.
By implementing strict supplier control monitoring, dairy manufacturers can ensure issues such as load acceptance sampling, storage of raw materials, perishable product management, QC release to production and incoming supplier COAs & COC are managed to ensure non-conforming raw materials are not released to production.
3. Laboratory Quality Analysis
QA and QC combine to ensure processes and procedures are compliant. They focus on preventing non-compliant raw materials from entering production by analysing incoming goods to identify problems before they occur. Dairy Manufacturers benefit from implementing an integrated laboratory management software solution to have full control of QC aspects such as sample management, results analytics, raw material compliance testing and customer specification compliance to achieve quality best practices.
4. Finished Goods QA
Quality Assurance and Control are vital at all stages of the product lifecycle.
Post-production finished product monitoring and control is necessary to track stock location and rotation, calculate the mass balance of product batches, monitor compliance of dispatch documentation, COA’s & COC’s and comply with TACCP security concerns by capturing truck seal traceability.
To be able to fulfil customer orders and avoid food wastage, quality assurance is an indispensable aspect of all warehousing and logistics operations.
5. Continuous Improvement
QA & QC are constantly monitoring and measuring the process and the product to improve quality. Through continuous improvements across the dairy manufacturing process, the quality function observes the plant floor personnel, the product and the production process to identify process drift, non-conforming products and deviations from procedure, investigating for root causes should a food safety issue arise.
Prompt decisions supported by factual data made in real-time with accurate quality analysis data to drive sustainable process enhancements.
6. Leverage Digital Solutions
The key to managing the quality of the product is to have swift access and full visibility of product and process quality data.
In order to achieve QA Best practices, Dairy manufacturers need to leverage digital solutions to eliminate risks posed by human error. Taking steps to create a paperless lab using directly captured smart data will generate cost and time-saving benefits.
Digital quality management is the way forward in a post-pandemic business economy, with regulatory and compliance requirements for electronic records needed to satisfy upcoming requirements for compliance. The manufacturers’ ability to clearly track the product is compromised by the risk posed by inaccurate or illegible record keeping. Digital records contribute to an efficiently run dairy manufacturing process and supply chain operation. Resulting in improved brand reputation and heightened customer satisfaction.
Achieve Excellence in Dairy Processing and Quality Assurance
To achieve excellence in quality assurance across the dairy manufacturing process, QA managers need to look to a complete end-to-end quality data management solution to help them overcome challenges with transparency and leveraging production analysis data for informed decisions.
As a paperless solution that enhances visibility, monitoring and control, Dairy Manufacturers can complete full end-to-end product batch traceability within 4 minutes. SoftTrace Quality Analysis module adheres to best practice quality standards at all stages of the manufacturing process and complies with good laboratory practice (GLP).
SoftTrace is key to ensuring dairy manufacturers achieve quality assurance, maintain quality control and reap the efficiencies and benefits afforded by a sustainable paperless lab.
SoftTrace Quality Analysis module is designed and developed to meet specific analysis and data integration challenges of the dairy manufacturing industry. Our QA module assists customers in meeting GLP for lab procedures and testing, cGMP and complies with INAB, ISO 17025, NSAI and CFR 21 part 11.
SoftTrace works globally with dairy multinationals, assisting them in improving their quality analysis procedures. With solutions advocating digital transformation by capturing smart data at the source, integrating and interfacing with existing laboratory instruments and plant floor systems to capture critical quality analysis information at every step of the process.
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If you want to learn more about our solution and how it has improved our clients’ processes, check out our Case Studies.