Accidents Happen

Mar/09

If you think about the causes of product recalls they are usually due to errors, accidents and last minute changes as opposed to a complete absence of controls or procedures. It may be that a test result was delayed, or a machine broke down, or a new supplier was used prior to it having been fully approved. All these in hind sight are clearly cause for concern and how they are handled is critical to determining whether a product contamination or product defect incident arises or not. The problem is that everyone is under immense pressure to deliver and meet targets and if an issue occurs in the production process a solution is required instantly. The personnel involved on the production floor will be looking for a work around, a solution. How well those people are trained and their knowledge and understanding of the process and the wider business will determine the outcome of such situations. If handled correctly, then there will be no issue, but if the wrong call is made (for example to proceed with production when it should have been stopped), there may be serious ramifications. Listed below are a few examples of the causes of some recall incidents:

  1. Contaminated raw material (e.g. milk powder contaminated with melamine)
  2. Contaminated component (e.g. lead in paint)
  3. Failure in quality assurance or HACCP controls (e.g. metal contamination in food product)
  4. Processing error (e.g. ready to eat chicken not cooked properly in factory)
  5. Manufacturing error (e.g. an electrical device is unsafe due to a fault in manufacturing)
  6. Cross contamination and labelling errors (e.g. nuts in a chocolate bar that does not declare them on the label)
  7. Packaging errors (e.g.The packaging is not sufficient to protect the contents)
  8. Loss of temperature control during storage or distribution (e.g. meat products that are not kept chilled during distribution)

All of the above issues should have been noticed and acted upon before the products reached the market. But then we are back to hind sight again.

In summary, producing safe products is not just about having robust procedures or even about the number of certificates on the reception wall. It is more about the complete package of effective quality assurance, personnel training, internal and external auditing, good practices and management commitment. Even after all that, we still need to be prepared because as we know, accidents happen!