TR Cutler Profiles Expanded Audits for Food Manufacturers in Manufacturing Alumni
TraceGains, Inc. (www.TraceGains.com) was founded in 1998 with a 100% focus on Positively Assured Traceability™. The company has a patented delivery system—14 patents granted and growing—and also is an authorized Issuer of United States Department of Agriculture Process Verification Program (PVP) Label. In the current issue of Manufacturing Alumni, Manufacturing Journalist TR Cutler examines Expanded External Audits: The Sensible Approach.
Richard Ross is Director of Industry Relations for TraceGains, Inc. According to Ross, “A new imperative has appeared. Consumer trust of food safety is shaken. Food businesses are realizing that traceability and supply-chain monitoring exposes an opportunity for additional profit. Although the consumer has always had the power to influence the food industry, that influence is being heard loud and clear – safe, flavorful and affordable food - and the food businesses are listening intently.” TraceGains, Inc. (www.tracegains.com) was founded in 1998 with a 100% focus on traceability. The company has a patented delivery system —14 patents granted and growing —and also is an Issuer of United States Department of Agriculture Process Verification Program (PVP) Label.
Ross shared with Cutler, “Today the annual financial audit is taken for granted by any company that is trying to establish credibility, whether publicly-traded or not. The financial audit is very much a fixture in today’s corporate world; less than four short generations ago, it was viewed as a revolutionary innovation. Corporate disasters have expanded the audit role beyond basic financial reports to include compliance updates on several corporate operational areas. Without third-party audits, stakeholders rely solely upon status updates from management to understand the state of a company. A traceability review offers similar reassurances. Expansions to previous audit protocols, such as the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, are usually a reaction to newly enacted government regulations or the most recent corporate misstep.
Recent events strongly suggest that it is now time to expand the external audit function to include an external review of a company’s traceability system. This does not require over-reaching governmental regulation. A decade of installing traceability systems for customers has shown us that only when a real-time process monitoring system is installed, and operational dashboards are provided to senior and mid-managers showing deviation from key operational business rules, will management perceptions synchronize more closely with reality.
Cutler asked Ross why monitoring traceability systems are not sufficient. Ross responded, “Even after process-monitoring traceability systems have been installed, an external review is needed to make sure that any gaps are plugged. A traceability review is a stand-alone audit (following a formally prescribed set of procedures conducted by auditors or third-party companies that are traceability specialists.) This is the only way that company directors, as well as existing and prospective shareholders, have the information they need to fully evaluate the company’s traceability risk. During the traceability review, specialists need to analyze factors such as: (1) product movement across the company’s different legal entities, (2) identity preservation across various internal process transformations, (3) methods of collecting traceability information, (4) the type of information being collected with respect to the required reporting regulations, (5) the methods the company uses to retrieve regulatory information in the event of a tainted goods episode, (6) company process and business rule compliance monitoring systems, and (7) the company’s recall history.”
By correlating and analyzing previously disparate data sets in the value chain, only TraceGains makes it possible to connect upstream inputs, suppliers, and raw materials to downstream outcomes such product quality or customer satisfaction. Firms can coach or replace poorly performing suppliers and counteract profit-draining events within the enterprise, as well perpetuate positive practices internally and throughout the supply chain, to achieve complete profit optimization. At TraceGains this is achieved through the Profit Optimizer.
TraceGains Inc.
Marc Simony, Director of Marketing
(303)682-9898
About the Author:
Professional Marketing Firm for the Manufacturing Community and Manufacturing Journalist to most manufacturing magazines
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