Post 25. What is a process?

What is a process? Any activity in the food supply chain that has a number of inputs and modifies them into one or more outputs can be termed a process.[1] A series of inter-related processes form a supply chain.

Inputs are the materials that are incorporated into a food product e.g. ingredients or packaging, sometimes called direct inputs.

Resources are the additional inputs (sometimes called indirect inputs) that are required within the process e.g. soil, water, air, fertiliser, people, machinery, equipment, processing aids such as CO2, or fossil fuels as energy or power.

Information can also be an indirect input and an indirect output as it flows though a supply chain.

Outputs can be intended e.g. the finished or part processed product from the process or unintended e.g. pollution (emissions to air, soil and water). Within a supply chain one output becomes the input for the next process or several processes.

Where there is inefficiency, losses or waste can occur. By defining the inputs and outputs and the actual process at a given stage, an organisation can determine what attributes they need to control at each “point” in the process to minimise non-conformity. 

Controls form an effective management system of planned processes and activities to ensure that all products and services comply with defined criteria in a specification, that products can be linked forwards and backwards to ingredients or suppliers further back in the supply chain; or forward to final customers and the controls ensure there is product consistency from one batch to another.

The next post will consider how these controls are combined into pre-requisite programmes such as good manufacturing practice (GMP), good agricultural practice (GAP), good hygienic practice (GHP).

 

[1] https://doi.org/10.1108/00070700610644915