Marnie Schmidt LLC recently partnered with Monin Gourmet Flavorings and would like to recognize them as their newest “Waste Warrior”. A multinational company, Monin identified “information sharing” as key to the success of their business, as well as their superior quality system, which is SQF (Safe Quality Foods) certified. According to SQFI (Safe Quality Foods Institute), “SQF certification assures buyers and customers that food has been produced, processed and handled according to the highest standards.”
Marnie Schmidt LLC, specializing in quality systems, lean and Six Sigma implementation facilitated a kaizen event with several members of the Monin team. Kaizen events are high impact, blitz events designed to focus and improve a specific process. A new process was identified, a document management system was constructed and populated, and workshops were held to allow members to practice in the new environment.
Mike Brewster, Vice President of Operations said, “We have a lot of work instructions and standard operating procedures that are regularly used for training and as reference documents. They need to be easily accessible. Content needs to accurate and up to date at all times. The new user friendly SharePoint Library is compliant with SQF and FSMA standards, ensures format consistency between documents, provides content control and helps Monin staff manage annual reviews as required by our SQF practitioner.”
Johanna Velez, Vice President of Quality Assurance, Procurement and Sourced Products, who has primary responsibility for spearheading their SQF certification, said “So far everyone has embraced the system. I have been getting notifications for changes and approval needed indicating that other departments are actively using it and the feedback has been positive. Users have taken ownership of their own documents and that makes me very happy.”
A team consisting of operations, quality and IT (information technology) explored many options and ultimately designed and constructed a brand new electronic library solution to provide access for everyone to the key information they need to support their world class processes. The new library was introduced with a hand-on workshop where users practiced using an “information treasure hunt” to ensure their understanding and proficiency with the new resource. One user, Brian Smith, said, “It will really streamline our work instruction review process and allow us to more easily manage and maintain their accuracy. The added Search features will be great too to help access information, but also avoid duplication or errors.”
