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Implementation of model for improvement (PDCA‐cycle) in dairy laboratories
Author(s) -
Kholif Abdelkader M.,
Abou El Hassan Dina S.,
Khorshid Mohamed A.,
Elsherpieny Elsayed A.,
Olafadehan Olurotimi A.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of food safety
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.427
H-Index - 43
eISSN - 1745-4565
pISSN - 0149-6085
DOI - 10.1111/jfs.12451
Subject(s) - pdca , quality management , accreditation , quality assurance , workflow , quality (philosophy) , process management , computer science , risk analysis (engineering) , operations management , medicine , engineering , management system , external quality assessment , philosophy , epistemology , database , medical education
The aim of this study was to implement Plan‐Do‐Check‐Act (PDCA cycle) as a method for the continuous quality improvement in the dairy laboratories. This method was used to identify and analyze the critical problems that occur in the preanalytical stage of ultra‐high‐temperature (UHT) milk samples, to find the root causes of their occurrence and proffer solutions. Results showed a reduction in the number of the contaminated UHT milk samples from initial 368 to 85. Moreover, the capability index (CP) increased from 0.52 to 1.07. These reductions in the number of contaminated milk samples and increase in CP increased the efficiency from 68.02% to 74.06% and the effectiveness from 88.95% to 96.85%. Thus, PDCA methodology can be successfully applied in the dairy laboratory to reduce the occurrence of errors and increase the processes capability to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of dairy laboratory. Practical applications Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is used in process improvement in medicine laboratories for patient's fulfillment, where the implementation of process improvement project in medicine laboratories resulted in a positive influence with more effective and simplicity workflow. Also, CQI in dairy laboratories is considered an essential issue, as the analytical quality assurance plays a fundamental role in the precision of laboratories results. Furthermore, future laboratory accreditation, which is considered a fundamental tool for the dairy manufacture to increase confidence in laboratories outcomes, can be obtained on the basis of quality assurance and improvement precepts. To the best of our knowledge, this current research introduces a method for CQI in the dairy laboratories (PDCA approach) which has not been discussed in previous related work.