Food Protection Trends - July/August 2022 - 339

But it is equally important for the employee community to be
engaged in the BPM program and are educated on their role
in both implementation and feedback.
The customers depend on the company's operational and
food safety performance. The company must properly align
its operational technology activities with the requirements
and wishes of customers and consumers regarding the
products and services provided, like OT performance and
reliability, allergen or origin information, and food safety
record: demand relationship management (DRM).
The suppliers have the greatest impact on the company's
operational and food safety performance. Most recalls are
caused by the suppliers of food companies. As a food company
you have the best grip on your own performance, because
you can manage and monitor it yourself. The supplier must
properly attune its activities to the requirements and wishes
of the food company regarding the products and services
supplied: supply relationship management (SRM).
Food company operational technology, to include management
and handling of all input, processing, processing devices
and systems, quality control devices and processes, packaging,
labeling and product output, tracking and tracing functions.
These operational functions are composed of both human activities
and automation. Automation is, of late, rapidly expanding
to reduce direct human engagement in many processing steps.
The operational systems integration with food safety functions
are typically far more intensive today than even a decade ago. Yet
most in senior management within the firm and within regulatory
agency staff do not fully appreciate this evolution of the
technology nor its inherent risks. Indeed, as such automation
progresses, particularly with the growing mix of older, legacy
technology and systems management with the introduction of
newly automated functions and technology, presents significant
risk both operational and food safety functions (10). Further,
as current and emerging food product traceability and tracking
processes are OT based, the need to build in resilience and OT
risk reduction is paramount to business performance success:
operational technology (OT).
As a food company you must take into account all facets of
current and pending food regulations and legislation (3). For
example, the legislation (European Parliament, 2002) (2) in
the EU is designed in such a way that as a food company you
are responsible for food safety yourself. In the United States,
company management is responsible under state and federal
regulations for food safety and to owners and investors for
day-to-day operational performance. But it is also subject
to these same regulatory for operational compliance with a
range of company functions from OT system compliance to
tracking and tracing and, product recalls, when there are OT
and/or food safety failures. The regulatory environment has
a major impact on the framework in which a food company
can operate. It is therefore important to make managing these
legislative and regulatory issues part of business operations:
legislation/regulatory management (LM) (3).
As a food company you also must take the food quality
standards into account. Both business to business customers
and retailers often require a supplier to be certified to
a standard recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative
(GFSI) (7): BRC Food (1), IFS Food (9),FSSC22000 (6)
or SQF (12). It is therefore important to make managing
this certification part of the business: certification management
(CM).
When you combine the 6 main actors regarding Food
Safety management with the 4 main themes that the QA
department normally works on, you get the following
definition.
OT resilience and food safety compliance management
(15):
Management of business performance, demand and supply
relations, legislation and regulations, operational technology
and certification with regard to company resilience and food
safety, taking into account operations, technology systems,
production specifications, quality activities, traceability and
assessment.
We must consider that the description above is a complex
system and specific training will be needed to recognize
" tipping cues " by operations/policy personnel as to how
and why a system may fail. A tabletop exercise (TTX) will
be needed to flush-out the problematic areas in the system
to create a better understanding of systems operation,
its inherent operational risks and to identify area where
increased functionality of the overall enterprise system can
be achieved.
You must carry out these integrated management activities
from a " systems thinking " perspective (11, 14). Depending
on the importance of and potential risk to each integrated
activity, you can organize it at different levels.
Level of activity organization:
* Activity
the activity is performed without pre-structured recording
and/or tuning of the input or output of the activity.
* OT Process
the activity is performed with structured controls and recording
of the input or output of the activity between 2 actors.
July/August Food Protection Trends 339
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