Now more than ever, in the midst of a global pandemic, it is imperative for companies to have stringent maintenance and sanitation protocols, prioritizing employee safety. Luckily, many companies are upping their game, and even installing new maintenance and employee relief areas.

Every facility needs a food safety plan, and that includes food safety software related to traceability. This software will come in handy whenever a company needs to trace a certain ingredient or product, due to recalls or other reasons.

“A food safety plan, like any other plan, is only as good as its implementation and proof of compliance. Wherefour helps users facilitate and document compliance with their plans and requirements for HAACP, HARPC and other regulatory and auditing bodies,” says Matt Brown, CEO, Wherefour, Petaluma, CA. “Instructions in bills of material or the production module of Wherefour can include GMP process instructions for sanitation, to make it easy for users to follow correct procedure during each batch. A permanent record of every step is kept in an unalterable log for verification and shows any corrective actions taken if necessary,” he says.

Wherefour also has a variety of inventory safeguards that minimize or prevent sanitation issues relating to allergen control by allowing only raw materials protected from cross-contamination to be selected for production. Likewise, inventory can be quarantined while waiting for QA test results, Brown adds. “Some users do in-process sampling for QA testing throughout production as part of their monitoring process and to verify the effectiveness of their sanitation controls. Wherefour allows these QA test parameters to be customized to capture whatever data is required.”

An important part of food safety is being able to find foreign objects in food products. Yuegang Zhao, CCO, KPM Analytics, Westborough, MA, says that the company’s vision inspection systems use a series of high-speed cameras and imaging software to detect and measure food products as they move along a conveyor belt. “Custom software and measurement algorithms can determine the size, shape, color or composite measurement of any object and convert this into standard units for quality control. For food safety, the system has the capability to detect foreign objects on food products. This includes items such as metal or plastic which can unfortunately make their way onto the production line,” he says.

“Depending on applications, foreign objects can be detected using color cameras or hyperspectral cameras, which take multiple images at different wavelengths,” says Zhao. “Some foreign objects may appear in similar colors as the food products, but will show much higher contrast under different wavelength of source light.”

Eric Weisbrod, vice president, product management, InfinityQS, Fairfax, VA, says that all of the company’s software solutions directly address the needs of all food manufacturers as well as snack food and bakery operations. “Our software products are used not just for process control reasons, but also to directly support your HAACP, GMP, SSOP, sanitation, and other food-specific data collection requirements,” he notes.

There are several key benefits that this industry can enjoy with a centralized quality system, including data-driven insights, data accessibility, and data assurance, Weisbrod says. “Every organization is required to collect different types of data for process improvement, compliance, customer requirements, etc. This data is already being collected, so it should be turned into actionable intelligence by having tools to aggregate and roll up data so it can be meaningfully analyzed and, most importantly, acted upon.”

Data accessibility is directly applicable to audits and traceability for all kinds of checks (HACCP, GMP, SSOP, etc.), says Weisbrod. “Simply having the data available in a centralized, electronic system means results are immediately available to answer internal questions, customer requests, and audit requests. This is vastly superior to using paper and pencil, or a collection of scattered spreadsheets or local applications.”

Weisbrod says that manufacturers have similar concerns regarding their quality checks:

1. Have the appropriate data collections been performed?
2. Are the collected values acceptable?
3. Are the appropriate actions being taken?

“Based on the first two items, the next question to answer is if the right actions are being taken if a check is late/missed, a value is out of specification, etc. Having the ability to require corrective actions, assignable causes, comments, etc., helps ensure that employees are taking the correct actions and provides visibility to know they are being done. Further, organizations now have the ability to analyze these actions and understand how to prevent future issues,” says Weisbrod.

Eric Garr, regional sales manager, Fortress Technology, Toronto, comments that Fortress recently unveiled a new suite of easy to implement industry compliant data capture and connectivity tools. Adding to the company’s existing Contact Reporter and Contact Manager turnkey package—included as standard on all Stealth and Interceptor metal detector models—bakeries and global snack manufacturers now have a new option to automate the collection and collation of data over their network using Contact 4.0. Additional options include Industry 4.0-ready data retrieval communication adapters.

“Contact 4.0 features a web-based interphase that lives on the network within the Contact 4.0 web appliance. This software interphases with all Fortress equipment, namely our new Raptor Checkweigher series. Contact Manager, which also automates data extraction, polling the metal detectors over a secure network connection and generating detailed reports, will only collect data from metal detectors.  Contact 4.0 allows for grouping of systems throughout the factory and provides a high-level status that can be drilled down into for more detailed real time information for each group of systems,” he explains.

All these solutions have been designed to assist food manufacturers maintain compliance with all international food safety standards, including HACCP, BRC, and GFSI/SQF.

For bakeries and snack producers with existing data extraction and factory management software, Fortress launched two new Communication Adapter platforms, OPC/UA Adapter and Ethernet IP Adapter. These provide a seamless connection and communication aligned to industry standard protocols and pull real-time granular data into each customer’s internal reporting system, Garr says.