Food industry is a sensitive, complex, and incredibly diverse sector. All manufacturers monitor and control their products by outsourcing a significant portion of the analyses. These analyses are central to quality control systems, both from the perspective of inherent and nutritional guarantees and, more crucially, in terms for food safety.
Summary :
- Food testing : what challenges for the Quality Department?
- Why choose an automated solution?
- How can we assist you in managing subcontracted analyses?
- Why choose CIKLab ?
Food testing : what challenges for the Quality Department?
Ensuring food safety is a regulatory requirement that must be guaranteed at every stage, from the reception of raw materials to the release of batches, through the manufacturing process.
Analyses serve as evidence and demonstrate Food safety control.
However, managing analyses is one of the many challenges faced by Quality Managers in the food industry, especially because the majority of sanitary analyses are outsourced to specialized laboratories.
What needs to be tested ?
First, it is essential to identify the appropriate analyses to be performed for each product. This requires a comprehensive understanding of the regulations that industrialists are subject to, based on the sector, type of material, its use, as well as the associated risks for each product..
How should the testing be conducted?
The standards, such as "ISO" , are based on specific techniques and provide guarantees of capability based on what you are testing. These standards have been extensively tested by multiple laboratories before being validated and published, taking into account various factors such as matrices and different analyte concentrations. This ensures the reliability of the obtained result.
Which laboratory should you choose for outsourcing?
Finding reliable and competent subcontracting laboratories to perform the necessary analyses can be a challenge in itself. It is crucial to ensure that these laboratories provide strong guarantees on the delivery of analysis results. You need to be able to reference the analyses of each laboratory based on factors such as pricing, turnaround times, and expertise.
How often should testing be conducted?
Choosing appropriate analysis frequencies based on risk is a complex task. It requires considering the probabilities of occurrence, the severity of hazards, and the ability to detect them, while also relying on historical results and supplier evaluations.
How can costs be managed effectively?
The costs associated with conducting analyses can be significant. Managing and having an overview of the expenses incurred for batch control, references, and choosing specific laboratories for certain analyses based on prices can be challenging. Of course, it is also necessary to find the right balance in terms of frequency, neither too frequent nor too infrequent.
How quickly should the testing be conducted?
Obtaining analysis results within a specific timeframe can be crucial, especially when quick decisions need to be made regarding product production or distribution. Delays in receiving the results can have a significant impact on production, batch release, and delivery.
Why choose an automated solution?
We understand that managing control analyses is crucial but also very complex, as we have just seen, because it is absolutely necessary to configure everything in advance:
- selection of analyses and methods,
- laboratories associated with the controls,
- quality control planning that depends on the products, risk assessments, and regulations,
- specifications for each tested parameter.
On a day-to-day basis, it is essential to be diligent in ensuring that the analyses are launched on time with the correct methods and specifications at the appropriate laboratories.
However, in the industry, the majority of control departments have no choice but to rely on multiple Excel files to manage these activities. Perhaps this is your case if you are reading these lines? You are aware of how extremely complex it is to work on multiple Excel files because you surely have a dedicated file for each of the following points, right?
- Control plans,
- Analyses,
- Laboratories,
- Subcontracted analysis tracking,
- Results,
- File for editing analysis certificates or conformity.
Without delving into the difficulties that Excel alone poses for managing control analyses, it is important to recognize the numerous challenges that Quality Managers in the food industry (Quality, Safety, Environment, CSR, etc.) have to handle. Not everything can be digitized, but the process of managing analyses can be easily streamlined and automated.
Save time, increase efficiency, and gain peace of mind! Focus on more complex tasks.
How can we assist you in managing subcontracted analyses?
CIKLab is a software for managing quality control analysis in the food industry.
CIKLab was designed to streamline, organize, and simplify the process of planning, ordering, and managing control analyses.
Today, CIKLab is the only true SaaS solution dedicated to subcontracted analyses, seamlessly connecting control plans, analyses, and laboratories (both internal and external).
Centralize your subcontracted laboratories on a single application
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Manage your analyses easily with robust control plans.
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Automate Food safety testing !
CIKLab enables you to automatically order and track your analyses with each subcontracted laboratory. You can easily record your results and test reports for each batch, making batch management and traceability a breeze.
Whenever a new batch is created in CIKLab, the necessary analyses, specifications, frequencies, and subcontracting laboratories are automatically displayed based on your settings. You can easily edit your analysis purchase orders with each subcontractor in just one click and track the progress of all analyses in real-time.
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💡 Once the compliance of analysis results and your batches is established, CIKLab simplifies the creation and validation of analysis certificates (CoA) by allowing you to electronically sign them and generate them directly in PDF format.
A secure solution for controlled data and analysis
CIKLab is a secure tool for your control system, accessible only by authorized individuals with personal identifiers and passwords. The application is available everywhere, requiring just one internet connection.
Users can have different levels of access and rights within the application, based on their profile (admin, supervisor, contributor, visitor, reader). The profiles are based on validation workflows, where some users can record analyses and results, while others, such as administrators and supervisors, can modify control plans, close batches, and prioritize specific laboratories.
All actions performed on CIKLab are recorded and dated to track any modifications.
💡 The hosting and security of the application are ensured in France and covered by ISO 27001 Certification.
Why choose CIKLab?
The latest food crises and increasingly stringent regulatory requirements will place control analyses at the forefront of all considerations: industrial, commercial, and even marketing! Do you have control? Make it known!
CIKLab is a strategic and winning choice for managing quality control analyses.
- A centralized organization of all your laboratories and analyses,
- Automatic control planning,
- Easy tracking of ongoing analyses,
- Continuous access to your analysis results,
- A collaborative solution.
CIKLab saves you time, boosts your efficiency by simplifying the management of your quality control testing !
