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What is a GMA-SAFE Assessment?
The GMA-SAFE Assessment consists of
approximately 630 questions to be answered by
the auditor. It provides sufficient information
to any customer or user of the report the
information needed to determine whether the
inspected facility meets the needs of a company,
an association or personal consultant
standards/requirements. The data can be sorted,
scored and analyzed for trends by any user
through a sophisticated set of web-based
electronic tools.
What is GMA-SAFE’s core competency?
The GMA-SAFE Assessment is a thorough
description of a food production, handling or
storage facility’s policies and practices,
documented by a skilled auditing practitioner
and communicated through a web based data
management & reporting system that allows
individual users of the Assessment to determine
if the assessed facility will meet its own
standard(s). GMA-SAFE’s core competency is
built upon (1) the fact that it does not
discriminate among standards employed by the
food industry throughout the world and (2) the
reality that no single set of standards could
ever be adopted worldwide that would
simultaneously drive both safety and economic
efficiency. The GMA-SAFE platform is currently
employed as a single vehicle by many, measuring
performance against any standard, eliminating
redundant audits prevalent throughout the
industry today.
What makes the GMA-SAFE Assessment better than
other audits within the industry?
In an effort to streamline the process, most
audits have been distilled down to a checklist
of quality indicators, relying on the auditor's
subjective judgment to determine whether and to
what degree the facility's systems comply with
those audit criteria. This forces a facility to
focus on ensuring those quality indicators are
in place, whether or not they are relevant to
the facility or truly indicative of their
attention to quality. Even then, the audit tends
to revolve around the audit score, not on the
particulars of what the auditor observed. In a
SAFE Assessment, the auditor gets to know the
facility's policies and procedures, performs an
inspection of facility’s records and in-plant
practices, and writes a comprehensive,
objective, narrative "virtual tour" of his/her
observations. This allows the facility to
demonstrate, and you to read, what they are
really doing, without the artificial pressure of
arbitrary audit requirements. Then, you can
decide for yourself whether their systems meet
your expectations.
What does the SAFE Assessment cover?
The SAFE Assessment Checklist is divided into
five Categories: Management Responsibility,
Fundamentals, HACCP and Food Safety Systems,
Quality Systems, and Regulatory Considerations.
Each Category is divided into one or more
Sections, which, in turn, are subdivided into
one or more Items. Each Item covers some
component of the facility's food
safety/protection and quality systems, and
auditors are instructed to investigate each in
an effort to learn (and report) what is really
being done. The auditor answers literally
hundreds of questions while compiling
information for the report. The result is the
most comprehensive 3rd party assessment
currently performed.
Why is the SAFE Assessment so detailed?
One of the primary goals of the SAFE program is
to reduce the number of audits that a facility
faces each year. To do this, the SAFE report
must meet the informational needs of many
customers, many of whom may be unknown at the
time of the Assessment. While few customers will
need or want all of the information in a SAFE
Assessment, each customer will have specific
audit questions that the SAFE report must answer
in order to make a follow-up Assessment less
likely. The Checklist was developed by the food
industry, and is continuously reviewed by GMA-SAFE
and the GMA-SAFE Industry Advisory Group to
ensure that the Assessment stays current with
the every changing food industry.
How does SAFE compare with other third party
audits?
The GMA-SAFE program was developed by 26
processor companies but is now governed by all
parts of the food chain (e.g., retailers, food
service, processor and packagers). For the
first time, the food industry's leading
companies have reached a consensus through GMA
to establish a high-quality food safety and
quality systems audit. Instead of customers
individually imposing their own criteria on
suppliers, these companies have agreed to a
common, comprehensive checklist that encompasses
virtually all of their food safety and quality
system needs. The result is an Assessment that
is more thorough, representative and informative
than other audit programs.
What are the SAFE Assessment requirements?
There is only one SAFE requirement: the facility
shall not be producing adulterated product or
product that would be considered in violation of
a regulatory requirement (referred to in the
SAFE Assessment as a Critical Failure).
Naturally, beyond that, we found that there is
remarkable diversity in what customers require
of their suppliers. What one customer may
consider a necessary component of a quality
program, another may consider nice to have or
not even important. Suppliers everywhere
complain about having to meet audit requirements
that seem unnecessary, are not representative or
are just costly without adding to their
products' safety and quality. Rather than add to
the list of arbitrary audit requirements, SAFE
has chosen to have no separate requirements.
Rather, the Contract Auditor collects and
reports what the facility is actually doing,
leaving it to the facility's customers to
determine the requirements.
My company has special audit questions that I
don't see in the SAFE Collection Tool.
How do I get those questions answered?
There are at least two options. First, feel free
to call the facility. Accepting a SAFE
Assessment report does not preclude a customer
from requesting more information, or even asking
for another audit. However, it is expected that,
with the details captured in a SAFE Assessment
report, most typical questions will be answered,
leaving any follow-up questions requiring only a
phone call or abbreviated visit.
The second option, useful when a customer will
have the same informational need of a number of
suppliers, is to work with GMA-SAFE staff to
develop a supplemental list of questions. Then
each supplier would notify their auditor, when
they request an Assessment that your company
will be receiving, and answer your supplemental
list of questions in a separate document that
will be provided to you by GMA-SAFE.
Is the SAFE Assessment scored?
Despite efforts to make audit criteria
definitive and to calibrate auditors, audit
scores are ultimately based on the auditor's
judgment, and judgments will vary between
auditors. This makes the scoring process
inherently subjective and potentially
misleading. Therefore, we feel the strength of
the SAFE Assessment is in the objective
narrative, and so neither SAFE nor SAFE Contract
Auditors will score the Assessment. However,
while the GMA-SAFE Program does not advocate
using scores to interpret an audit, we do
provide a scoring option for those customers
that require it. To use the Scoring Template,
you first provide a value to the auditor's
judgments, and a weight to each Assessment
section. That way, those elements of the
Assessment you deem most important can be
counted more in the score than others you feel
are less pertinent. Then, each of your
suppliers’ Assessments can be compared using
your Scoring Template to provide a weighted
numerical value. Since the customer determines
the relative value of each judgment and the
weight of each section, it is also up to the
customer to determine what constitutes a
"passing" score.
Who has had a SAFE Assessment?
GMA-SAFE maintains an updated list of
facilities that have scheduled a SAFE Assessment
or have had a SAFE Assessment in the last three
years (the supplier has the right to request not
to be included on the list). You can
view the list here.
Do I have to be a member of GMA to view or have
a SAFE Assessment report?
No. Any processor or warehouse/DC can have a GMA-SAFE
Assessment and that auditee can share their
audit report with anyone they choose.
What does it cost to see a SAFE Assessment?
Suppliers pay the entire cost of the Assessment
to GMA-SAFE. GMA-SAFE does not charge a separate
fee to customers to access or print a SAFE
report, or to use any of the SAFE Internet
tools.
How do I get access to a SAFE Assessment report?
All SAFE Assessments are accessed online from a
secure GMA-SAFE database. To access a published
Assessment, you need the unique key code and
password. The code and password can only be
granted by the supplier but, once provided, will
allow you instantaneous access to the Assessment
report online. If you are unsure whom at the
facility to contact for this information, call
GMA-SAFE Program Coordinator, Jill Gerken at
708-995-5682.
Do I have to read the entire Assessment report?
SAFE provides four levels of detail in each
report, so you can tailor the level of detail
that you want to access:
1.
The full report provides the auditor's objective
description of the facility's policies,
procedures and actual practices; the auditor's
opinion of the system's apparent effectiveness
(referred to as Auditor Judgment) along with a
narrative summary of that Section (i.e., Section
Summary); and the optional Facility's Response
to the Auditor's Observations (often used by the
facility to provide their "corrective actions").
2.
A
summary report view provides only the 37 Section
Summaries (including the Auditor's Judgment for
each Section) and the Facility's Responses. If
the reader sees a comment, judgment or response
and wants more information, the details for that
section are always available in the full report.
3.
The Executive Summary is a table of the
auditor's 37 judgments. Some customers use the
Executive Summary to scan the report for
assessed sections that the auditor judged as
less than fully developed or implemented, and
can then go to the detail to read what the
auditor observed.
4.
The scoring option provides a numerical
representation and summary of the auditor's
judgments.
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