Wednesday, Feb 15, 2012
Food Quality and Safety Intertwined

In his recent article “Striking the right balance between safety and quality”, Kevin Higgins, the Senior Editor at Food Engineering, wrote about the interconnection between quality and safety programs and interviewed several people in the industry. Although most understood quality in this context implied process management and meeting specifications, there were some that discussed quality in the product grade sense.

Thursday, Jan 12, 2012
How to Collect Data for Successful Manufacturing Intelligence

Manufacturing needs timely information to support and drive operational decisions. Manufacturing Intelligence (MI) turns plant data into that usable knowledge and real-time decision support.

NWA supplies the analytics that drive much of the MI system, but the question remains, what is the system infrastructure required to support an effective MI system? During 2012 we will focus our webinars on what needs to be considered to support an effective MI program.

Friday, Dec 16, 2011
Analyze Your Audits for Better Compliance

John Surak presented his webinar, “Applying Process-based Analytics to Audit Results for Process Management and Improvement” yesterday. The recorded presentation is now available for you   and the slide deck is available at SlideShare. 

Tuesday, Nov 29, 2011
Can You Help With Audit Analytics Case Studies?

ISO 22000 requires the analysis of results of verification activities, and SQF and BRC require annual validation of the Food Safety Management System. The analysis of the data for either of these two activities can be easily done using SPC.

Tuesday, Oct 25, 2011
The Right Data at the Right Place…

It’s the too common plant management problem: too much data too poorly defined and improperly collected to be usable for process management and continuous improvement. 

Automation and manufacturing system expert Charlie Gifford took on these issues in our recent webinar, “Designing Data Collection for Consistency that Improves Process Management”. One conclusion: since no quality system can be better than the data entering the system, management needs to step back, look at the process and determine:

Friday, Sep 23, 2011
Order Out of Chaos

World class manufacturing requires a complete understanding of what is happening in all parts of the enterprise. This means well organized accessible data that can feed analytics to provide effective manufacturing and management decision support., However, most companies maintain their process and business data in a collection of different databases that were built at different times for different purposes that were never designed to work together.

Monday, Aug 22, 2011
Applying Process-based Analytics to Audit Results for Process Management and Improvement

Operational audits and inspections play a critical role in assuring the effectiveness of the Food Safety Management System (FSMS).  To realize the maximum value and effectiveness for process management and improvement, key process indicators should be identified and plotted on control charts.  The control charts can then be assessed for trends, so actions can be taken before a food safety incident occurs. 

Wednesday, Aug 17, 2011
Defending the Value of Operations and Quality Systems Investments

Process and quality management departments need to develop strong ROI arguments to successfully compete for corporate funds.  While these groups work in some of the most data intensive areas of the enterprise, they frequently make the weakest cases for the value of their activities and the gains that will be realized from further investment in their capabilities.

Thursday, Jul 28, 2011
Finding the ROI in Your Quality System

Process and Quality Management departments possess the competence to manage and improve their manufacturing processes, reduce costs and increase yields. However, they are often unprepared when it comes to demonstrating Return on Investment (ROI) to management whether selling a new project or funding ongoing quality management operations.

Tuesday, Jul 19, 2011
Audit Analytics

The data gathered from food safety operational audits and inspections frequently goes no further than the summary report. The process information contained in this data can and should be used in continuous improvement programs.