Quality Control and Total Quality Management in Dairy Industry
Dr. Shubha Singh
Teaching Associate, Institute of Para Veterinary Science, DUVASU, Mathura, U.P.
Introduction
In the present competitive environment, survival of the organizations is getting harder and industries are becoming global. Companies now have to be more responsive, offer a better product, and keep improving. Quality control and total quality management (TQM) increases customer satisfaction by boosting quality. It does this by motivating the workforce and improving the way the company operates. In an increasingly competitive market, firms with a continuous improvement culture and external focus are more likely to survive and prosper. TQM is considered an important catalyst in this context.
Milk quality is all about prevention at each step of production. Quality control systems are aimed at the prevention of defects, rather than their detection. Quality control occurs at every step in the production, as a raw material on-farm conditions. Consumers, processors, and regulatory agencies are increasingly interested in the safety and wholesomeness of milk resulting in increased emphasis on farm management to ensure the production of milk quality.
Keywords:- Quality control, HACCP, CCP, Dairy Industry, TQM
What is Quality Control?
Quality is defined as surpassing customer needs and expectations throughout the life of a product and creating a product of worth for all stakeholders. Quality can be defined as conformance to requirements, fitness for use, meeting and/or exceeding customer’s expectations, defect avoidance etc.
What is Total Quality Management ?
TQM is an approach to improving the effectiveness and flexibilities of business as a whole. It is essentially a way of organizing and involving the whole organization, every department, every activity and every single person at every level. TQM ensures that the management adopts a strategic overview of the quality and focuses on prevention rather than inspection.
Objectives of Quality Control and TQM
India is the world’s largest milk-producing country for more than a decade. Quality plays a vital role for the Indian dairy industry from a food safety point of view. After 1992, due to World Trade Organization (WTO) & General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) agreement, the world has become an open market for every product. So the quality of product is very important. Meeting the customer’s requirements is the primary objective and the key to organizational survival and growth. The second objective of TQM is continuous improvement of quality. The management should stimulate the employees to become increasingly competent and creative. TQM also aims at developing a relationship of openness and trust among the employees at all levels in the organization.
Quality Management System in The Dairy Industry
The HACCP system has become a synonym for sanitary security of food products. It is worldwide acknowledged as a systematic and preventive approach to control biological, chemical, and physical dangers (hazards), using anticipation and prevention towards inspections and analyses of finite products. HACCP is a method that has to be applied by companies to secure the quality of food products, based on two main objectives: hazard analysis and determining the points, during the creation process, in which these dangers are controlled. HACCP is the best-designed quality control program for the dairy industry because it is highly farm-specific, easy to link up with operational management, relatively low cost, both product and process-oriented, and not require much labor while ISO is very laborious, costly, and non-specific in context to dairy industry.
What is HACCP ?
Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point is a management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement, and handling, to manufacturing, and distribution. This concept was first developed by Pillsbury Company for NASA and was first adopted for astronauts to prevent hazards that could cause food-borne illnesses and consumption of the finished product.
Seven Principles of HACCP:-
- Identify the potential hazards
- Identify the critical control points (CCP)
- Establish critical limits
- Establish and implement effective monitoring procedures at CCPs
- Establish corrective actions
- Establish procedures to verify that the measures outlined above are working effectively
- Establish documents and records
Potential Hazards and Critical Control Limits:-
- Contamination of milk from animal and environmental sources during primary production should be minimized.
- Water used in primary production operations should be suitable for its intended purpose and should not introduce hazards in milk.
- Storage time temperature needs to be controlled during the processing and packaging.
- Microbiological hazard stems from improper personal hygiene. Chemical contaminants include plant toxins and chemicals added during the processing of milk and milk products. For example, the excess detergent left on the just cleaned equipment.
- Physical contamination is foreign material that could come from incorrect personal handling or bad environmental conditions.
Significance of TQM
The importance of TQM lies in the fact that it encourages innovation, makes the organization adaptable to change, motivates people for better quality, and integrates the business arising out of a common purpose and all these provide the organization with a valuable and distinctive competitive edge.
Elements of TQM
- Be customer-focused:- It requires the company to check customers’ attitudes regularly and includes the idea of internal customers as well as external ones.
- Do it right the first time:- This means avoiding rework, i.e., cutting the amount of defective work.
- Constantly improve:- Continuous improvement allows the company to get better gradually.
- Quality is an attitude:- Everyone has to be committed to quality. That means changing the attitude of the entire workforce and altering the way the company.
- Telling staff what is going on:- This involves improved communication. Typically, it includes team briefing.
- Educate and train people :- An unskilled workforce makes mistakes. Giving more skills to workers means they can do a wider range of jobs, and do them better. It also means educating staff on the principles of TQM, which is a whole new style of working.
- Measure the work:- Measurement allows the company to make decisions based on facts, not opinions. It helps to maintain standards and keep processes within the agreed tolerances.
- Top management must be involved:- If senior management is not involved, the program will fail.
- Introduce teamwork:- Teamwork boosts employees’ morale. It reduces conflict and solves problems by hitting them with a wider range of skills. It pushes authority and responsibility downwards and provides better, more balanced solutions.
Reasons for Failure
TQM fails because:-
- Top management is not concerned for its staff.
- Top management is not committed to the TQM program.
- The company loses interest in the program after six months.
- The work force and management do not agree on what needs to happen.
- No performance measures or targets are set so progress cannot be measured
References
Ranjan, S. and Jadhav, V. J. (2012). Handbook of Quality Control of Dairy and Meat Products (1st edition). Biotech Books.
GOOD MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR SUCCESSFUL DAIRY FARMING IN INDIA : A PRACTICAL APPROACH
