Food Safety chain failure due to Poor Auditing or a victim of Top management Failure

The food related diseases have pointed to the failures in the food supply chain. Regrettably, the managements of these companies have without hesitation, pointed the finger at poor auditing, and further and even more to lack of appropriate requirements and guidelines! This is not surprising – considering that, the owners of the Titanic were very prompt in attributing blame to their Master! Concordia after Costa Concordia repeated history by blaming the Master! BP holds either Transocean responsible or the operators or anyone else but themselves!

When managements shirk away from their commitment to continual improvement of their system, (ISO 9001:2008 Clause 5.1) and chose to depend on auditors to improve the system it is a potent mixture for the death of the organization. If the industry was correct it might be a good idea then to have auditors as CEO's and let them run the companies and sole all the worlds’ corporate problems. We would then be surrounded by ENRON type debacles!

It is the managements who must retain the customer focus (Clause 5.2) and do all that is necessary to improve the system that runs the business and provide safe and wholesome food. The outbreak of food borne diseases is not an auditing failure- it is a management failure. Addressing auditing instead of the management failures would be like treating the symptom and not the root causes. The management must take on the responsibility for providing a quality policy (Clause 5.3) backed by their commitment (not the auditors commitment).The top management must set the measurable objectives leading to regular reviews to improve the system.

That the entire food chain starting from raw material to delivery of the finished product is the responsibility of the organization should leave no doubt. The failure of the chain is then is then a Top Management (TM) failure. Forgetting or mixing up that auditors and auditing are one of the many tools who provide input to the management to make decisions. When food organizations (for that matter any organization) leaves its decisions or passes its responsibilities to auditors that organization is doomed to failure (Clause 5.6.3). These defaulting companies get the audits and the results thereof. If they pay to ensure the system fails, it is their decision. Immature organizations forget that a deficiency (NC or CAR) is the starting point of correction and Corrective Action (CA). As the companies put in place a mature system they further appreciate the need to go beyond treating symptoms. Correction and CA will continue to cost the organization. Food chains will improve and meet the customer requirements when their reviews inclusive of audit inputs provide the data which can thence analyzed and interpreted to get the information to recognize potential problems and address them (Clause 8.4 & 8.5.3 of ISO 9001:2008).

The auditors and regulatory bodies can only do that much in the absence of uncommitted managements (read TM).