ISSUE 03 | JULY 2016
Food Quality Magazine
requirements (deviation)
• Customer satisfaction evaluation
for 2012 was not performed (deviation)
• Measurable objectives for customer satisfaction evaluation are not
defined (deviation)
• Customer satisfaction questionnaires were used. In the case of
average or worse score detailed
information needed for improvement was not always available (deviation)
• Customer requirements and expectations were identified and
evaluated by customer questionnaires. The sample of the inquired
customers, however, did not cover all
groups, not including retailers representing about 15% if the company
turnover (deviation)
• There were procedures for finding
out customer requirements and expectations. Part of marketing and
trading activities of the company had
recently been outsourced, and the
procedures had not been updated
(deviation)
4.1.4 Management Review
For the auditor management review
is an interesting part of the audit. It
is a collection of information from
various resources on the quality and
food safety management system
functioning. The responsibility is on
the company management, not the
quality manager alone. The quality
manager may prepare materials for
management review (in the case of
medium-sized and large companies
the materials must also be provided
by other representatives responsible
for the individual areas), may moderate the discussion in the context
of which the management review
is executed, but it is absolutely necessary that management provides
a standpoint on each item of the
management review agenda. The
auditor often receives a report from
the quality manager but the standpoint of the management is missing.
And yet this is nothing complicated.
The management only takes minu-
30
tes of the review in which it expresses its standpoints to the individual
points on the agenda, e.g. by accepting the report results concerning
the reviewed areas or proposing an
improvement and defining the relevant tasks.
The standard lists the minimum
scope of management review:
- Results of audits and internal inspections
- Customer feedback (including
complaints)
- Process and product compliance
- Preventive and corrective actions
implementation status
- Consequential measures following
from previous management reviews
- Changes that might affect quality
and food safety management system
- Recommended improvements
Management review may also include other important items, including
review of the HACCP system, especially by small companies, where
the management review and HACCP
team composition is similar.
Usually
perform
management
review annually. More frequent
reviews are often not necessary, for
unlike operative meetings the results and trends addressed concern a
longer period. An interesting point of
management review is comparison
of the results for the review period
(usually one year) and for the past
couple of years. Sometimes management review date corresponds to the
anniversary of the first IFS audit and
is not ideal for the company due to
other planning mechanisms (economic planning etc.). It is not important
for the audit whether the management review is scheduled close to
the audit date or not, the auditor
is rather interested in the way the
review is performed, its outputs and
their use for continuous improvement of the company. It is therefore
no problem to change the management review date for the beginning
of the calendar or fiscal year when
all results for the previous year are
available, and schedule the audit for
the end of the year when records
from nearly a year old management
review are available.
As mentioned above, management
review is usually performed annually,
sometimes biannually. IFS standard
requires more frequent reviews in
the case of substantial changes.
The last two points of part 1.4 concern the requirements for use of
results of internal audits and internal inspections, their review and
corresponding investment planning.
Not only the results of internal audits but also results of internal inspections must be then included
in management review. Problem
areas should be defined (e.g. where
drawbacks in personal hygiene are
found, where investments are needed for work environment improvement etc.). This requires adequate
reaction time, in the first case represented by changing of instructions
or additional training, in the second
case by ensuring corresponding
funds for the required repairs. Internal inspections are often forgotten in the context of management
reviews.
Examples of deviations and nonconformities:
• Management review has been
carried out but particular standpoints of the management to the
individual review items are not available (deviation)
• The review report is too general,
lacking assessment of the HACCP
system, evaluation of internal nonconformities, internal and external
raw material analyses results, internal inspections (deviation)
• The results of the last management
review did not include assessment
of quality objective fulfilment in the
area of customer satisfaction (deviation)
• Results of internal inspections were
not included in management review
(deviation)