The styles of today's civilization, with the increase in the pace of life and its consequences, have contributed to the development of the food processing industry, causing better technologies, more diversity of products, and at the same time more demands for the quality and safety of they.
In this sense, every day the rules and regulations that control the food industry are greater and more rigorous. However, despite the control to which the processing plants are subjected, there are cases of food contamination, either due to natural contaminants, or introduced accidentally or through negligence.
In an effort to guarantee the quality and safety of food, models have been developed to improve the performance of companies and ensure their results. Among them, the Quality Management Systems designed to achieve effectiveness and / or efficiency in the different entities and where the regulations of each type of product must be assumed. For food, compliance with the Hygiene Codes is required because they contain extremely important measures to guarantee the cleanliness and hygiene of the productions, avoiding contamination. Also in recent decades, in many countries it has become mandatory regulation to have a Hazard Analysis System and Critical Control Points (HACCP) in the different productions.
The Quality Management Systems have their maximum exponent in the ISO 9000 standards, which were published for the first time in 1987, and are the most widely accepted model worldwide for establishing mutual recognition agreements so necessary for trade.
HACCP was created in the 60s of the 20th century, at the request of NASA; with a view to guaranteeing food prepared for the astronauts. From this very specific destination, it has undergone wide dissemination and evolution that has led it to be recognized by the Codex Alimentarius as the main way to demonstrate reliability in the management of hazards in food production.
It has been described that these Management Systems are difficult to implement in small companies, but there are varied experiences that show that they can be very useful for producers and small processing plants.
Within foods, special consideration must be given to milk, which is one of the most complete foods out there. It is the main source of calcium in nature, it provides very valuable elements such as vitamins, proteins of high biological value, and other minerals.
These characteristics, in addition to its good digestibility, make milk a staple food at all ages, even used with preferences in vulnerable populations such as the elderly or the sick.
For milk to meet these nutritional expectations, it must meet a series of requirements that define its quality. However, the nutritional richness of milk has the disadvantage that it can be an important vehicle for microbial agents that find in it the elements they need for their survival. Obtaining systems can also introduce contaminants of biological, chemical and physical origin. Thus, the irrational use of substances to control pests and diseases in livestock introduces the possibility of the presence of chemical residues and inhibitory substances in milk. Therefore, milk and dairy products must show a physical-chemical, bacteriological,and free of residues considered harmful to the consumer and this should be your letter of introduction within this demanding world of free trade.
To ensure the quality of food and especially dairy, it is essential to implement an Integrated Quality and Safety System, which aims to integrate, under a single structural and managerial approach, programs and activities unique to the industry, such as are the Hygiene Codes, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) or prerequisite programs, safety or HACCP and quality or the best of ISO 9000.
Today, the merger of these models is a reality, and fundamentally the integration of HACCP within the ISO models, as the latter are more comprehensive in terms of requirements.
Development
Taking into account the above, an integrated quality system was designed with the requirements of the ISO 9000 and Safety standards with the application of the HACCP principles, in the facilities of a milk and dairy derivatives processing plant located in the West from Havana, Cuba.
As a first step, a diagnosis of the initial quality situation of the establishment was developed, using the methodology proposed by the NC-ISO 19011: 2004 Standard for quality auditing.
The diagnostic audit was carried out taking into account the requirements established by the ISO 9001: 2000 standard for quality systems, the Codex Alimentarius regulations (2003), the requirements of ISO 22000: 2005, the EEC and national standards such as NC 136: 2007; NC 143: 2007 in addition to specific standards for this type of industry.
For the design of the System, the results of the diagnosis were used, which in turn already contemplates the requirements of the different standards and also allowed prioritizing the most critical aspects and far from the established requirements. This is a work approach recommended by various specialists (Villoch, 1998; Pérez and Urquiaga, 2000, Pérez, 2002).
Process management, organizational aspects were included in the designed model according to the methodology of Villoch and Pérez (2002), and the elements recommended to maintain a hazard management according to the Hazard Analysis System and Critical Control Points (HACCP). This integrated quality and safety system (figure 1) was gradually implemented and culminated in an evaluation of its implementation and effectiveness.
Figure 1. Design Methodology for integrated ISO9000 and HACCP system.
Results
As a result of the diagnosis, it was demonstrated that there was no organizational system for the execution of the operations and processes of the entity since the success requirements of ISO 9001 were not met, this meant that a guarantee could not be offered to the client of the quality of the product, from its obtaining to its distribution.
Based on the above, the organizational structure of the plant was established and the responsibilities and functions of all the personnel were defined. All the processes were identified which were plotted in flow diagrams using the OTIDA method and the block diagram method, these diagrams were part of the process files that also make up the established documentary system, which has a total of 104 documents, including standard operating procedures (SOP), quality records, technical and equipment instructions, APPPC plan, critical point self-control plan, product files and the Quality Manual.
To incorporate the food safety analysis into the designed Quality Management System, it was based on the criterion that the 7 principles of HACCP harmonize perfectly with the elements of the ISO 9001: 2000 (ISO 22000: 2005) standard, therefore They included and used tools from the HACCP system to define CCPs.
While the Integrated Quality and Safety System was being designed and during its implementation, the training of workers was carried out so that they were able to perform the tasks that corresponded to them, emphasizing the issues of quality and food hygiene, due to the importance of the role played by the human factor in quality management and food safety assurance (FAO, 2003).
For the evaluation of the effectiveness of the system model designed and implemented, in addition to conducting a quality audit that allowed us to know that the level of implementation of the integrated quality and safety system was 77% (Figure 2). Hygienic, sanitary and performance indicators were analyzed, which evidenced an effective improvement in the behavior of these parameters, as can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 2. Level of implementation of the Integrated Quality and Safety Management System in the Lactea del Oeste de La Habana SME.
Figure3. Indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of the system before and after implantation.
Conclusions
- A Quality Management System was established in a small dairy processing plant that harmoniously integrated the requirements of ISO 9001: 2000, the Codex Code of Hygiene, Good Production Practices, regulations for this industry and the Hazard Analysis and Critical Points Control System. The application of the HACCP concepts allowed the identification of Critical Points and the establishment of a control system that offers confidence to customers and regulators about the safety of the products. The implementation of the Quality and Safety Management System model had a positive influence on the quality of the final product, decreasing the level of rejection of the same by concept of microbiological contamination The application of the system raises the levels of sales and the number of customers, decreases the levels of rejection of the batches produced by concepts of eternal and internal failures, a increased revenue in freely convertible currency and demonstrated improvements in product quality and safety, higher profits, and customer satisfaction.
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