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An explosion of new products and the lengthening supply chains create an entirely new landscape in which product safety must be managed. The sheer scale of the challenge demands new approaches to using more robust information both to contain, and to prevent instances of contamination or adulteration. The challenge is to provide greater food security without adding significant cost to the consumer.
Food safety practices are often disconnected from other aspects of production analysis. Though the same sensory array and plant systems may support both process automation and quality data collection, analysis to ensure safety is generally isolated from analysis aimed at improving yields or process reliability. Those processors that “re-integrate” these disciplines are being rewarded with opportunities to reduce material waste, and recover capacity. The approach they take demands that all aspects of a final good – ingredients, production routes/assets used, process data and test data – must be correlated so that issues in one area can be evaluated as potential leading indicators for instability or violations in another. In this way, automation and IT investments that support structured approaches to risk management such as Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point (HACCP) regimens can be “double-tasked” with enabling deeper insight into material and productivity losses – and vice versa.
Thanks to its Open and Layered architecture, the Proficy suite of Operations Management software uniquely provides a single platform that supports both food safety and continuous improvement stakeholders – enabling a food-safe and more profitable supply chain.
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