How to solve your challenges with Zoning

In many facilities it is a challenge to implement a good way of routing of people and materials. WHY is this a challenge? And HOW can you change this? Are you working in a ‘Brown-Field’ or a ‘Green-Field’ location?

What is a ‘Brown-Field’?

A ‘Brown-Field’ location is an existing building. Your challenge is to follow and implement all the GFSI-rules in an existing building. Many years ago we didn’t have separate areas in our factories like a high care area. Nowadays many locations have created a high care zone. And yes, your existing building might be not easy to change to create a high care zone.

What is a ‘Green-Field’?

A ‘Green-Field’ location is a new building. You have all the possibilities to create your building as you would like to have. Or not? Well, often we start with designing what we would like to have…and then we realize it will cost a lot of money. And yes, then we decide to skip things. So also ‘Green-Fields’ have their challenges.

What areas should you introduce?

Low Care Area

We start with the Low care area. Sometimes a Low care area is also called a Basic care zone. What do we mean with a Low care area? A typical Low care area is where you store your raw materials and products. These need to be fully packed and closed at all times.

One of the things that we see happening often is that people open the primary packaging in a low care area to sample their raw materials. The Low care area is not the area where you would like to sample your raw materials. Bring your raw materials to a dedicated QC area or sample your product in your Medium care or High care area.

<p> <img src="map zoning.jpg" alt="Map Zoning"> The Biggest Issues With Personal Hygiene and HOW to Address These... </p>

 

Medium Care Area

Medium Care is the area with low risk product handling. This means that all of your production steps are with closed pipes, closed tanks, etc. It is more difficult to infect your product via Personal Hygiene because you can’t touch the product.

<p> <img src="medium care map zoning.jpg" alt="Medium Care Zoning"> The Biggest Issues With Personal Hygiene and HOW to Address These... </p>

 

High Care Area

In a High Care Zone you have a High risk product handling. At a High Care zone you have open production steps. And next to this you sometimes might need to touch the raw materials or products. It is a easy to infect your product via Personal Hygiene because you can touch the product.

<p> <img src="high care zoning.jpg" alt="High Care Zoning"> The Biggest Issues With Personal Hygiene and HOW to Address These... </p>

 

What are the Challenges within the Areas?

We’ll give you a few examples. Often it is difficult to create hygienic locks for people and material. Many factories don’t have a lot of space to introduce these. Have you been at factories that do not have a lot of space? GFSI-guidelines require all kind of measurements and introductions, also on these areas. What they do not tell you is HOW you need to implement these things. And HOW you can overcome these challenges. That brings me to the next question. Do you experience a challenge with creating hygienic locks?

Another challenge is that it is difficult to connect all the process steps with the area you would like to have. Let me give you an example. We often see that factories have several high care areas and in between they created medium care areas. People need to go from one area to another and back, several times a day. This is a huge microbiological challenge and a Personal Hygiene challenge. Are you sure these colleagues will change their clothes when they leave one area and go to the next?

We would love to hear your thoughts on the challenges that you see in these areas and how you did overcome these.

 

Training on Personal Hygiene Management

All GFSI-guidelines acquire that people are trained. Therefor we all provide a lot of trainings on Personal Hygiene for the Work Force. However, we hardly train our QA staff on HOW to Engage the Work Force. Next to this, often after following a training you learned a lot about WHY it is so important that you take action. On the other hand, most of the courses don’t provide you the information of HOW to improve your system. And that’s exactly the difference of all the courses of Food Safety Experts and all the other courses you can find. We, at Food Safety Experts, focus on the HOW. This will give you a lot of tools to implement and improve your situation.

Check out our training. You will have one year access to the video lesson. This will give you the time to implement what you have learned. You can watch the training as often as you would like to. Next to this, you will receive a certificate that you followed a training on The Biggest Issues in Personal Hygiene Management and HOW to Address These. For more information: The Biggest Issues in Personal Hygiene Management and HOW to Address These

<p> <img src="personal hygiene management.jpg" alt="personal hygiene management"> Aspects of Personal Hygiene Management ... </p>

 

QFS Mastery Program

At Food Safety Experts we have our QFS Mastery Program. This Program contains 24 modules with different topics related to food safety. And Personal Hygiene Management is one of the modules. In this module you will receive ± 2.5 hours of video lessons on HOW to Improve your Personal Hygiene Management System and ± 10 downloads that you can implement in your organization.

This Program will give you a huge boost as a professional and for your company. For more information, please visit our website QFS Mastery Program.

 

Food Safety Experts Services

Other interesting services of Food Safety Experts:

QFS Webinar Replay Repository

QFS Mastery Program

QFS Success Coaching

QFS Mentoring

 

Blogs Food Safety Experts

Other interesting blogs of Food Safety Experts:

Personal Hygiene Management and Gowning

How do you change the image people have of a Quality Department?

What Skills Does a Quality Manager Need?