Quality System
Quality System Overview
SPEG operate a fully documented QMS comprising of a series of interrelated manuals. The Quality manual describes the company’s trends, its attitudes and aspirations and in the quality field and outlines the responsibilities and interaction of key staff.
It is supported by procedures manual which defines the principles and rules by which the company hopes to achieve and maintain its quality goals while the instruction manuals define in detail how staff carry out their work in a manner which ensures that they can meet the company’s needs. These manuals are backed up by a variety of locally controlled sites.
All documentation within the Quality System is controlled in that alterations can only be made, or procedures overridden by obtaining specific authorization from the Management Representative who will himself have to follow laid down procedures before such approval can be given.
In addition, the Management Representative also ensures that regular internal audits and quality systems review occur and are themselves rendered. An overall review of the entire Quality System under the chairmanship of the Technical Team will be held annually.
Implementation
The Technical Committee is responsible for ensuring that the products and processes with which SPEG is involved are legal, effective and defined in terms which ensure they can be utilized in the correct, menus. At least annually, GLOBALGAP, Traceability and HACCP review of all process related activities will be carried out under the control of the Technical Manager, to confirm the most effective implementation of our processes a safety of products.
The Quality Control Department will monitor and check processes and products to confirm conformity with relevant specification. Where potential improvements are identified or where products or processes are found to be out of specification, internal non-conformity (NC’s) will be raised.
Documentation
All documents within are controlled. If externally serviced, they are identified in a master list held by the Technical Manager and checked annually for their issue status against recognised list in the country.
The QM and all directly referred documents will comprise the basic OMS documentation. Other documents required but not directly referred may be locally controlled by the responsible manager, or may be submitted to the OMS for inclusion in the central document control system.
All aspects of the organisation’s processes except the offsite sensitising activities are included in the QMS alongside, but not in the QM. Each operating department will establish a documented flow diagram, based in the HACCP analysis of the processes in the department and indicating the activities involved and the procedures to be followed.
All documents in the core QMS will be approved by the GM/TM or the Technical team. Additions will be printed in italics and deletions will be highlighted in struck out text until the next amendment is added, at which time, italics will revert to normal and stuck out will be deleted. Evidence of approval will be the printing on unique SPEG PAPER, reserved specifically to centrally controlled documents.
The OMS is responsible for ensuring that requests submitted through departmental managers are responded to, and that the requested documents are made available within three working days of the request being submitted.
Outdated documents must be clearly identified and should not be used for current activities.
Any records generated to meet or demonstrate the functioning of the QMS must be identifiable, traceable to the process or product to which they relate and either signed or in some other defined way, attributed to the originator of the record, such records will be the responsibility of the area management, to store in a retrievable manner and to keep available for a period of at least 6 months from date of creation.
Responsibilities and Accountabilities
- Executive Council
- Technical Committee
- Logistic Committee
- General Manager
- Publicity Committee
Technical Manager
- Design and implementation of systems for improving quality.
- Maintenance of up-to-date documentation, legal and code-of-practice, pesticides list.
- Maintenance of quality and hygienic standard including staff dress and cleanliness.
- Responsibility for all aspects of quality and technical support, including agronomic information, GLOBALGAP, produce specification, which must ensure both legality and safety of product. Defining hygiene requirements, calibration of any instrument used.
Communication
Leaders of various sections are expected to bring their staff on a regular basis to ensure that senior management policies and concepts are communicated to junior officers who need to know.
Management Review
The review meetings are intended to be the policy which will generate ideas.