Our quality systems professionals have outlined the steps that they use in developing quality management systems with clients. We will cover each step in detail. You can use this as a guide for planning your project.

The first key step is for management to recognize the need for a Food Safety Management System. This is critical to having management commitment. Without management commitment you will not have a successful project. Management will need to provide resources as well as play a key role in the development of the system. If top management is on board, you have accomplished a big first step. If not, getting them well informed is a good place to start. Once they understand what is required, and what the benefits of a good management system are they are much more likely to give the project their support. Have management identify the goals for the Quality System.

Review questions such as:

• Is Registration or Certification the main goal?
• Is there a customer or market requirement? If not, what is the goal or reason for building the system?

Compare these goals to what a 22000 Food Safety Management System (FSMS) will do for you. A 22000 FSMS will give you and your customers confidence in a globally recognized quality system, expand market opportunities and bring improvement to your processes.

Educate the decision makers on what the 22000 FMSM requires, and what it will take to achieve it. If you have already done a Gap Analysis you will have an idea of how big of a project it will be. You may have quite a bit in place that already addresses requirements; this is especially true if you already have a strong HACCP system in place. Quality processes or systems that you have in place already will mean a shorter implementation project.

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