Monitor and control quality of work activities in food and drink operations
Overview
This standard covers the skills and knowledge for monitoring the quality of work activities to achieve targets in food and drink operations.
You need to follow relevant policies and procedures that apply to your area of work and report on the quality of work activities against specifications.
You need to organise work to meet schedules and targets, and make effective use of resources. You also need to identify, record and report any problems affecting the volume of throughput.
You will contribute to identifying opportunities for improving food and drink operations. You will identify improvement opportunities by suggesting ideas and contribute to developing an action plan.
This standard is relevant to you if your role involves monitoring activities
to ensure that quality standards are being met.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- check that there are sufficient resources available to complete work activities within your own area of responsibility
- monitor work activities to identify any variances against specifications in accordance with organisational requirements
- complete all relevant checks in accordance with organisational requirements
- report all variances outside of specification to relevant person(s)
- identify and report opportunities for improvement of work activities to relevant person(s)
identify implications of changes to make sure that the change is documented
gather information about potential improvements
- identify and make positive suggestions about areas for improvement
- share your ideas for improvement with the relevant people and react positively to feedback you receive
- communicate your finalised ideas in sufficient detail to enable further action to be agreed
- work with others to agree an action plan for putting improvement ideas into action
- make a positive contribution to putting the plan into action
- test and check improvements to find out how effective they are before recommending further action
- evaluate the effectiveness of improvements that have been introduced
- access information from appropriate sources to support your report and recommendations
- communicate recommendations to relevant people in accordance with organisational requirements
- follow current legal and regulatory requirements for hygiene and environmental standards or instructions
- complete records in accordance with organisational requirements
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- the relevant legal and regulatory requirements, hygiene and environmental standards and instructions and what might happen if they are not followed/met
- the principles of quality and why quality is important
- the importance of communication
- how to organise work to meet schedules and why this is important
- types of resources available for monitoring purposes
- how to make the most use of resources
- why work activities and throughput should be monitored
- types of monitoring systems and how to monitor throughput
- actions that can be taken to minimise problems affecting throughput
- how to identify and solve problems which affect throughput
- how operational parameters affect the achievement of output targets
- consequences of ineffective monitoring, control systems and processes
- actions which can be taken to minimise downtime and disruption to the process
- the potential conflicts between quality and throughput in relation to the needs of the organisation
- how to use specifications for monitoring and controlling the quality of work
- how to identify variances
- procedures for dealing with variances
- how to develop and implement solutions to minimise variances using continuous improvement methodologies
- why continuous improvement is necessary and what are the benefits
- why is it necessary to gather accurate information when considering improvements
- work practices and procedures that are relevant to any identified improvements
- how to identify the short and long term benefits from improvements
- where, when and how to get help and advice
- the lines and methods of communication and why it is important to communicate
- the importance of stakeholder engagement
- what information is required to produce an action plan
- how to evaluate the implications of putting improvement ideas into action
- why it is important to check improvements for effectiveness and how to carry out these checks
- how to handle discussions and possible disagreements positively and constructively
- the process of implementing new continuous improvement methods