Mock recall workbench
Run a timed mock recall: stamp the start, trace back to every raw material and packaging lot, trace forward to every customer, reconcile every unit, and time the NCC notification draft and the retailer DC stock report. The workbench scores trace time and % reconciliation against your targets, lists the gaps and builds the report. Nothing is sent anywhere.
A free practice tool for QC and QA supervisors, technical managers and food safety team leaders who have to prove that their traceability and recall system works. It comes loaded with two exercises from Isipho Beverages & Snacks, a fictional snack and beverage plant in Hammarsdale, KwaZulu-Natal, so you can practise without a site of your own. Use My own site for a desk-top trace of one of your own batches.
Mock recall targets (for example 4 hours or less and 100 % reconciliation) are set by the site or the customer, not by law. Certification schemes and customers expect a test at least once a year.
How to use this workbench
- Set up. Pick last year’s Isipho cola test (Lesson 4), this year’s peanut exercise (the practical) or your own site. Set the targets. Each case opens with the records beside the forms, so you can enter the numbers yourself.
- Clock and timeline. Press Start the clock now for a live exercise, or type the times from the exercise log. Every step gets a timestamp, including the NCC notification draft and the retailer DC stock report.
- Backward trace, forward trace and reconciliation. Enter the lots, the customers and their stock reports, then the stock, samples, waste and other recorded withdrawals. The workbench works out units accounted for and the percentage.
- Contact test. Record who was reached on the listed number and who was not.
- Report. Check the trace time and % against target, review the gap list, add 3 to 5 actions with owners and dates, then print or download the report. On a case, Check against the case records tells you what to fix.
Mark every message to customers “EXERCISE”. Nothing leaves the shelves in a mock recall.
// The course behind this tool
Run the recall system, not just the paperwork
This workbench comes from Module 6 of the QC/QA Supervisor Course for Food Manufacturing (with Introduction to HACCP) (FS60-0603): complaint triage, withdrawals and recalls, NCC and R638 notifications, mock recalls and incident management. The course also covers leading the QC team, the verification programme, HACCP for the supervisor, KPIs and trending, CAPA and root cause analysis, supplier QA, audits and culture.
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