Tools in Improving Quality Assurance and Food Control

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of basic quality tools used in the food industry. Quality movement in the food chain introduced various quality tools that help food companies improve different aspects of their food processing performances, including control of final products. Use of different quality tools to improve quality of food is the foundation of developing an effective food-quality assurance system. The basic seven quality tools comprise flowcharts, check sheets, histograms, Pareto diagrams, cause and effect diagrams, scatter diagrams, and control charts. This chapter highlights the practical use of these tools from a food industry perspective. Use of control charts, both for attributes and variables, are the focus of the chapter. Besides basic charts for variables, the chapter employs two other charts to monitor the process location and spread: cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts and the exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart. Process capability indices that are widely used in manufacturing industries are explained in terms of their use in the food industry. Finally, the chapter gives an overview of multivariate process monitoring and control.