Food safety ‘continuous improvement’

A focus on food safety ‘continuous improvement’ pays many dividends to the food producer. Aside from the obvious importance of compliance with the BRC Global Standards and specific retailer audit bodies, a dedication to pro-actively push internal standards forward can go a long way to reassure customers who take the wider picture into account when choosing suppliers – safety, sustainability, ethical processes, etc.

With regards to the food grade lubrication and production reliability that falls in Activate’s particular area of expertise, improvements in culture bring big safety, efficiency, compliance, financial and brand reputation benefits on a continual basis.

“Surely, once an optimised lubrication culture is implemented that’s the end of the story?” Well, actually no… although it is true that the biggest gains are at the start of the journey, gains that can have immediate positive effects.

For example, following a Lubrication Improvement Project that identified deficiencies in practice that were causing a vastly increased number of failures and spiralling costs, the switch to an intelligent Activate lubrication plan, based on expert knowledge and analysis, saved the site in question nearly £300,000 in engineering and downtime costs in 12 months.

The scale of improvement potential does, of course, dependent on the situation in individual production sites but, while we do see best practice, 98% of the time we see optimisation opportunities that can be implemented straight away for immediate effect.

Activate’s mission is to help customers replace lubrication related losses with Lean gains and this is an ongoing challenge as, for example, new product lines are added, and new engineering staff join the team.

Our ongoing support ensures that your lubrication plan grows with you and is always optimised for best results. We put great emphasis on training and offer a range of solutions to quickly and successfully onboard your new recruits and keep more experienced staff at the top of their game.

We can support any business, at any stage of the Lean journey, to elevate lubrication to a strategic level and achieve greatly improved (and continually improving) safety and sustainability.

As producers come under increasing scrutiny from both their customers and their customers’ customers, it’s vital to adopt a culture of continuous improvement. Making full use of an expert partner for each area of your business ensures that inefficiencies and non-conformities are nipped in the bud and your business processes run for maximum benefit to both yourself and your customers.

Activate are your food grade lubrication solutions partner. Please contact our friendly, knowledgeable team for a no-obligation chat about how we can improve your reliability and asset life, reduce downtime and maintenance costs, and support you on your continuous improvement journey.