Using SAP® to Support Your HACCP Plan: A Recipe for Success
An effective HACCP plan is a critical step for food and beverage manufacturers in the continuous process of monitoring food safety. As consumers push for greater assurances around the safety of their food, regulators have responded with more stringent regulations. Under the recently amended Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC) require food and beverage companies to implement controls in order to prevent or significantly minimize known or reasonably foreseeable potential hazards.
HARPC shares some commonalities with the Hazard Analysis and Critical Controls Points (HACCP) but shifts the focus from the reactive approach of HACCP to a more proactive approach. HARPC also extends oversight over a food and beverage processor or manufacturer’s entire supply chain and includes many more hazards than the three covered in HACCP (physical, chemical, and biological).
Regardless of the differences, food and beverage manufacturers seeking to effectively manage supply chain operations to the best of their ability leverage both HARPC and HACCP, as well as Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) practices. For businesses seeking to successfully meet HARPC requirements, HACCP serves as the optimal precursor.
Implementing and managing HACCP successfully in order to prepare for HARPC requires a technology component that can be easily and efficiently adapted to the business’ enterprise technology landscape. For many food and beverage manufacturers, SAP® can be used to seamlessly and effectively manage both HACCP and the greater business with unique industry features and options helpful to the quality control process.
For many food and beverage businesses, failure to meet HACCP standards comes down to a combination of human error, lack of supplier visibility, and poor documentation and organization controls. These issues are compounded by the fact that many businesses have multi-plant and multi-site operations, leaving them with a greater exposure to risk.
