Before we look at the advantages of digital food safety systems, we need to be aware of some of the disadvantages that are inherent to paper-based food safety systems.
1. Lack of employee support
When a food safety process prescribes cleaning a surface or checking the temperature of a deep-freezer, for example, paper-based checklists contain only the steps to be carried out and the time at which they must be finished. However, they provide no guidance of which special factors need to be observed during the checks, and which corrective actions for deviations are prescribed.
Deviations or problems can occur, such as the violation of upper or lower temperature limit values. These then need to be documented on paper, and action is often only taken days or weeks later. In addition, the employees can only make handwritten comments, which can lead to misinterpretation, depending on the handwriting.
Paper-based checklists also provide no possibility of visual documentation, e.g. in the form of photos. These however, would in many cases considerably simplify the documentation.
2. Manipulation and pencil whipping
If there is only low interest in the completed checklists, and they are only looked at when an audit is scheduled, then this can lead to the staff’s questioning the purpose of the documentation. As a result, the lists are filled in incompletely and without enthusiasm. The appreciation of the relevance of the compliance-relevant task and their completion on time is increasingly lost.
It is not uncommon that the checklists for the entire weekend are already filled in on Friday, or that missing entries are completed later when an audit has been announced. Employees have the feeling they are documenting everything simply for the audit and not for the safety of the consumer.
3. Time-consuming analysis
It is not just finding and filling in paper checklists which needs a lot of time and effort. The analysis of completed checklists is also time-consuming and requires valuable management resources.
Analyzing possible weaknesses in a restaurant or store and gaining an overview over the overall status of the food safety system is very complex using paper-based documentation. The same applies to the comparison of individual sites with each other (benchmarking).
Now let’s consider the top 10 advantages of digital food safety systems.
1. Compliance
The change from paper-based to digital checklists opens up new possibilities and advantages for your food company in terms of providing evidence of compliance. The implementation of digital food safety procedures supports your staff in carrying out their work, by providing detailed instructions and operating recommendations.
• Is the employee about to miss a compliance-relevant task?
The system displays the open checklists by shift and notifies the employees if jobs are overdue.
• Does the staff member not know how to carry out a process step?
The system enables the provision of detailed instructions including visual images.
• Is the employee trying to skip a process step
The digital system insists on completeness. Processes can only be successfully finished with an uninterrupted documentation.
• Is an entry outside the specification defined by you?
The system shows the deviation and the required corrective actions and guides the staff member through their implementation. Thanks to this kind of instructions, a digital food safety system can promote consistent and appropriate behaviour in the interests of food safety while ensuring compliance.
2. Easy implementation
In many restaurants and supermarkets, it is the manager who documents the completion of the compliance tasks, as the checks are too important, or can be too advanced for a new employee. This ties up cost-intensive personnel resources in every location.
With well-designed digital checklists which are easy and intuitive to work through, even lower management team members can carry out and document the processes correctly. This allows you to deploy your workforce in the company in a targeted way and to operate more economically.
3. Comprehensive documentation possibilities
With digital checklists, visual documentation such as photos is possible. This additional possibility simplifies many work steps enormously, reducing time and complexity.
4. Extensive analysis and easy reporting
A digital quality management system allows you not only to implement checklists digitally, but also offers extensive analysis functions for the recorded data. Viewing and interpreting the results is considerably simplified, since all information is presented in a collated and clear overview and can be called up at any time. This means you can operate proactively and to further develop your system exactly according to your needs.
5. Updates at the touch of a button
When individual process steps in food safety procedures change, or limit values are altered, digital checklists can be updated at the touch of a button. This allows you to ensure that all stores work with the updated checklists from the point in time defined by you, as the old versions are no longer available. All storage costs for the printing and dispatch of updated checklists are eliminated.
6. Improvement and training potentials
With a digital food safety system, you can see at a glance which compliance-related tasks are frequently subject to errors or difficulties in the outlets. You see which outlets require assistance in implementation, without needing be on site to look manually through the results recorded on paper. This allows you easily identify problem areas and stores.
With this information, the training requirement for certain processes or affected locations can be derived and implemented, in order to ensure that every staff member understands and adheres to the food safety practices.
7. Data access and records
In addition, it is much easier to organize, file and access digital data records. To do this, you do not need to view the floods of paper on site in the restaurant, but can access the data conveniently via an internet access. This enables you to prove compliance faster, in more detail and with a greater level of responsibility.
8. Modern working environment
A digital food safety system makes a considerable contribution to a modern working environment in your company. Staff can identify more easily with the compliance-relevant tasks and enjoy carrying out the tasks digitally.
9. Customer satisfaction
With the introduction of an intelligent digital checklist system with automatic temperature monitoring, your staff have more time to concentrate on their core tasks and your customers’ satisfaction.
10. More space and no storage costs
When your company switches to digital checklists, the space is freed up which was otherwise needed for storing the documentation. With data storage in a secure Cloud, piles of paper and the sorting and storage of folders is unnecessary. All storage costs for the paper-based checklists are eliminated.
Testo can support your journey towards digital food safety management, so contact us today to find out how we can help meet your specific needs.
Testo South Africa (Pty) Ltd
1 Glen Eagles Office Park
Cnr. Braambos & Monument Rd.
Glen Marais 1619
Kempton Park, South Africa
Contact number : +27 11 380 8060
Email : info@testo.co.za
