Maintenance workflow management

Contents

• The standards.
• The requirements.
• BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9.

The standards

Equipment controls are a requirement in the following sections of the standards:

The requirements

Repairs

Repairs to equipment must be controlled to prevent contamination.

Temporary repairs must be suitable, kept to a minimum, used only in an emergency, and must be scheduled at the earliest opportunity for full repair.

Calibration

Calibration records must include:

• Who made the adjustment.
• The adjustment.
• The date and time the adjustment was made.

Equipment controls

The following equipment must not pose a risk to the product:

• Mobile equipment.
• Battery-charging equipment.
• Diesel-powered equipment.
• Equipment which isn’t in use.
• Automated equipment that carries out processing activities.

Equipment must be:

• Logged and risk assessed to identify the required controls.
• Inspected to meet legal requirements, prevent contamination and substandard product, and records retained.

Operational equipment and materials

Operational equipment and materials which are in direct contact with food or food contact packaging, must be suitable for food contact and meet legal requirements.

This must be evidenced using a certificate of conformity or specification.

Engineering workshops

Areas used to carry out maintenance tasks, such as engineering workshops must not pose a risk to the product.

Contractor controls

Where used, contractors must be accompanied and supervised at all times, unless they have completed suitable training to allow them to work unsupervised.

Training

Staff involved in maintenance jobs, including autonomous maintenance must be competent.

BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9

What’s changed for Issue 9?

There has been a full re-write of the equipment section within the standard, which means that this topic will get a lot of attention at audit.

There’s a new clause for the control of equipment which isn’t in use, to ensure that it’s kept clean and maintained so that it doesn’t pose a risk to product.

There’s also a new clause for the control of mobile equipment, to ensure that where equipment from outside the product handling area must come into the area, this must be controlled so that it doesn’t pose a risk to product.

Plus, another new clause which means that battery-charging equipment must be controlled so that it doesn’t pose a risk.

Lubricants

All chemicals must be suitable for food use and this includes lubricants. They must meet the relevant legislation including:

• Food Contact Materials – Regulation (EC) 1935/2004 and its subsequent amendments.
• US Code of Federal Regulations, e.g. 21 CFR 178.3570.

or ISO 21469 Safety of machinery – Lubricants with incidental product contact — Hygiene requirements.

You can also use the NSF Whitebook to check if your lubricant is suitable for food use.

The legislation page contains links to these references.

Did you know?

Lubricating equipment prevents it from failing and causing foreign body contamination. However, lubricants must be applied in a controlled manner, so that the lubricant itself doesn’t pose a contamination risk.

There are intelligent systems that will help to ensure that equipment is lubricated at the correct frequency, following the required process and in a controlled manner. For example, the 53North grease gun is a piece of handheld equipment that’s connected to a smart device, such as a phone. An app then guides the operator, so that they know where and how to apply the lubricant. The grease gun dispenses just the correct amount of lubricant and shares the information to the cloud. This allows tracking and trending of data for monitoring, review and auditing purposes.