Quality deployment is considered as one from TQM tools, how can we implement it in food safety?

Dear All,

The quality function deployment is a matrix used to improve the major characteristics of a product; and having a safe food for human consumption is one of the most important aspects of quality when we are manufacturing any kind of food products "Go no Go"

So it can be considered as one of the main parameters when applying the quality matrix

Regards,

Maher 

 

Food safety is a growing global concern not only because of its continuing importance for public health but also because of its impact on international trade.
The application of total quality management (TQM) provides the best possible care by continuously improving products and services to meet or possibly exceed the needs and expectations of the customer.
Designing a TQM system requires a profound knowledge of the agro-food industry, while implementation ideally requires an integrated approach involving all parties in the agro-food chain.
An effective HACCP programme requires equally competent technologies to determine and monitor each critical point.
The role of hazard characterization and risk assessment of foods cannot easily be over-emphasized.
An increasing number of companies are striving for a certificate, to realize both ‘external benefits’ as part of their market strategy and ‘internal benefits’ to open up a way to enormous improvements and efficiency.
This paper reviews recent developments in HACCP certification, the standardization of risk assessment, the necessity of chain formation in the agro-food sector and the improvement of global communication.
  Food quality can be defined as a total of traits and criteria which characterize food as regards its nutritional value, sensory value, convenience as well as safety for a consumer’s health.
Thus, it is a broader concept than food safety.
Food safety (hazard-free) is the most important feature of food quality, hence the food law regulates this issue, in order to assure consumers that the food they purchase meet their expectations as regards safety.
It is also an increasingly important public health issue.
Governments all over the world are intensifying efforts to improve food safety in response to an increasing number of problems and growing consumer concerns as regards various food risks.
  Besides, it is important to distinguish between the terms food quality and food health quality.
These two remain in the relationship such as food health quality embracing only the health-related traits (that is, hazard-free and nutritional value), whilst food quality being a broader concept, covering all the features presented.
Thus, in addition to food health quality related attributes, food quality comprises values such as sensory characteristics (e.g.
taste of food, smell, etc.) and convenience (e.g.
easy in preparation, etc.).
  In order to preserve the quality features in food products, various safety and quality assurance systems have been developed.
Any system constitutes a systematic approach to assure that food products have particular traits at any stage of production and distribution.
Some of the systems are obligatory by law and some voluntary to be implemented by the food chain members.
  The distinction between obligatory and voluntary systems is based on the safety (hazard-free products) being the quality of food required by law.
Thus, obligatory systems have been established to assure food safety, and are subsequently called “safety assurance systems”.
These include Good Hygiene Practices (GHP), Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP).
  Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) is a set of guidelines specifying activities to be undertaken and conditions to be fulfilled in food manufacturing processes in order to assure that the food produced meets the standards of food safety.
Similarly, Good Hygienic Practices (GHP) constitute a set of guidelines specifying activities to be undertaken and hygienic conditions to be fulfilled and monitored at all steps of the food chain in order to assure food safety.
Both GMP and GHP constitute a precondition in a food enterprise for implementing the HACCP system.
  Maintenance and/or introduction of the remaining qualities in food (nutritional, sensory and convenience values), is not requested by law, albeit desirable by customers.
Voluntarily implemented systems, known as quality assurance and management systems, include for example Quality Assurance Control Points (QACP), the well-known ISO-9000 (quality management) and ISO-14000 (environmental management).
  Quality Assurance Control Points (QACP) is one of the quality assurance systems in food production, created based on the HACCP concept.
In case of HACCP, Critical Control Points (eliminating hazards), parameters and their critical limits are determined3, while in QACP – Control Points (quality assurance, not safety), parameters and their critical values4.
Likewise in HACCP, QACP is unique for each company and must be introduced individually for each enterprise and production line.
  Having implemented GMP/GHP, HACCP and QACP systems, the next step could be to implement other quality systems, e.g.
ISO-9000.
The ISO-9000 series of standards represent the requirements which have to be addressed by every enterprise to assure the reliable production and timely delivery of goods and services to the marketplace.
There is a body of literature and plenty of professional materials (both electronic and in print) concerning the quality management based on the ISO-9000 series of standards.
Many food chain actors require their suppliers to become registered to ISO-9000 and because of that, those who registered find that their market opportunities have increased.
Nevertheless, despite being very popular, ISO- series are not, and are not going to be, obligatory.
  It is important to make a distinction between the terms “assurance” and “management”.
The term “assurance” relates to a product itself and involves all the safety assurance systems (GMP, GHP and HACCP) and the quality assurance system QACP.
On the other hand, the term “management” corresponds to a company’s overall organization as regards the products’ quality (including safety), and involves the remaining Quality Management Systems QMS (ISO-9000, ISO-14000, etc.) as well as Total Quality Management TQM.
  The fact that the customers’ expectations influence the quality and safety of food products seems obvious in that each producer should be concerned about his own reputation at the marketplace.
Selling low quality products or unsafe food appears suicidal to a company who would conduct such practices.
Unfortunately, such instances do occur, therefore other measures are required to protect the consumers’ health and assure that food products meet their expectations.
  It is necessary to remember, however, that no system can work without ethics.
The role of ethics in the food industry was recently brought up in Poland, following a food scandal in a well known meat plant, which was suspected to be conducting unsanitary practices.
When supermarkets returned deli meats after they expired, the plant did not destroy them as required, but they were reprocessed, re-packed and re-sold to the stores.
Despite frequent sanitary inspections, these practices persisted until the undercover TV reporter (who took a job as a plant worker and subsequently documented these practices) made the discovery and unveiled it to the public.

I agree with Mr.Maher Nayfeh answer

we can implementing it for food safety by training and knowing quality concept to anyone have a relationship for food chain (from farm to fork) and knowing the effecting quality on food safety.

Quality Maintanence is a continuos process.
For eg.
from farm to fork.
We have to start and maintain quality right from the farm practices, collection and storage of agricultural products, their processing leading to the formation of value added products and its storage for consumption etc.
In each of these steps, we can implement some critical quality monitoring steps like detecting the presence of possible physical, chemical and biological contaminants and its avoidance as in case of an HACCP system; thereby we can attain an optimum TQM level.
The steps and the practices to be followed depends upon the type of food items we are dealing with whether it comes under perishable, semi perishable or non perishable category.

we can keep food is safe place and rich out of vacterias we can handle the food also carefully we can clean our daprtment with bacterial liquid always where we can keep food