#57 - work-related

13.08.2010

Finally, had finished the HACCP audit and we passed and were recommended for certification. Fuh! All our hard work paid off finally. Bravo to the team, though there are still lots to improve. HACCP is a food safety system which emphasizes on GMP (Good Manufacturing Practise) as a pre-requisite and its fundamental.

Without a strong implementation and good understanding of GMP, it’s basically impossible to adopt HACCP system effectively. The auditor was ‘cool’ at first glance, in fact I would say ‘very cool’ but towards the end of the audit, I found that she was only being very thorough and offered a few inputs for our improvement. I would ‘label’ her as a good auditor.

Though we are supposed to be relieved, something in my mind told me that there are still lots to be done. The commitment and the co-operation from everyone is vital and that’s what I worried the most. We have an average team which is really quite a ‘young’ HACCP team in terms of understanding and implementation. So some might not view certain issues too seriously. Or shall I say too busy to be able to do that? Anyhow, I will still try to steer the team towards improvement and will try to instil the awareness that it takes a team to maintain a HACCP-based system.

With us being recommended for the HACCP certification, now I only have to concentrate on the closing of the minor non-conformities issued. Not too much, though there are some issues which were only informed verbally, for our consideration. After this, I can concentrate on training my staff on technical knowledge, something which I am lacking in too.

But definitely gotta do forced learning or else God knows when will we be able learn from each other. Then, there is another new project. Not too big a scale but sufficient to keep me busy as I never handled it before. No fear though, worse come to worse, did some mistakes here and there. Never try never know. Learning knows no boundary.

No one would know how worried I was for this audit, up to the point where I went to the ‘na tok kong’ to pray and it was like what… only once or twice a year I went there? So much for the butterflies in my stomach. Well, can’t blame me for that. I was worried to death as suddenly the Production didn’t seem to care so much about the audit.

Perhaps that was an exaggeration but with the way they behaved, it was hard not to be so. Sure la they were worried as well, but they had reached their maximum threshold. With the fasting month and production rate nearly doubled, everyone was over-worked and tired. Needless to say, the 3 ladies of the Lab did the praying and it did make me more relaxed thereafter. 心理作用吧！

But all turned out well in the end. Just like what the auditor said, we are still a young team and there are many rooms for improvement. And it doesn’t mean that we are OK in the section where we didn’t get any minors. Will keep that in mind and remind the team again during the next round of HACCP meeting.

Another thing that caught my attention was the making of cantonese pau a.k.a. Hong Kong pau a.k.a. dim sum pau. What was so special with this kind of pau is that the pau will crack on top (got opening, compared to the normal pau which we ate), offering a nice appearance and nice aroma esp. when served hot. Texture is fluffy and airy as well. Needless to say, it required double acting baking powder to promote the cracking and of course, the flour protein level got to be low enough too. if too high, it might not crack on the top at all. And it was actually quite interesting to learn from zero all over again.

After gathering some input here and there, and with the assistance of the youtube videos, i managed to get the overall picture of its making. Too bad I don’t like cooking, if not I might have tried to do it myself. Perhaps can pass to my mom to do it. She is more dedicated and more into cooking, much more than me, needless to say!