The maintenance system

Contents

• The standards.
• The requirements.
• What’s changed in BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9?

The standards

A maintenance procedure is a requirement in the following standards:

The requirements

The maintenance system

• The system must be defined in a maintenance procedure, which details the requirements for planned preventive maintenance, maintenance workflow management and project management.
• The scope of the system must cover the facilities, all equipment on site and all related materials.
• Equipment, materials, and tools, must be fit for purpose, meet legal requirements, not pose a risk to the product, and be purchased using an agreed specification.
• The facility and equipment must be accepted back into operation, following maintenance and repair to ensure that it’s fit for operation.
• Contractors must be managed so that they adhere to site hygiene rules.
• Where staff carry out autonomous maintenance, they must be competent to do so.
• Monitoring equipment must be calibrated, the process validated and then verified as accurate following maintenance and repairs.
• Preventive maintenance must be planned, and breakdown and temporary repairs must be organised, so that they don’t pose a risk to the product.
• Maintenance facilities, including workshops must be controlled so that they don’t pose a risk to the product.
• Records of maintenance activities must be kept as evidence, including any corrective and preventive actions taken.

Planned preventive maintenance

• There must be a planned preventive maintenance system that covers the facility and its equipment, to prevent contamination, product inconsistencies and breakdown.
• Predictive maintenance, for example condition-based monitoring, can support the system but it must not be used on its own.
• The preventive maintenance system must be reviewed following repairs and incidents, to prevent future failures.

Maintenance workflow management

• There must be a proactive and reactive maintenance system in place that covers the facility and its equipment to prevent contamination, to ensure that product meets the specification and to enable fulfilment of orders.

Project management

• There must be a project management system in place which ensures that where there are planned changes to the facility or its equipment, that these are controlled to prevent contamination of the product.
• The project management system must connect with the planned preventive maintenance system and the facility management system.

What’s changed in BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9?

• There’s an addition which states that records of handback checks must be kept.
• A review of the maintenance system must also now take place following a repair, as this is an indication that the system isn’t effective.
• Mobile equipment must be covered by the maintenance system.
• It’s been clarified that planned preventive maintenance is a schedule of proactive actions, which are designed to prevent equipment failure.
• The lubrication clause has been updated reference the US regulations.