The maintenance department plays a significant role in product recall management. Without the maintenance team, an organization can’t manage product recalls — and could face lawsuits and expensive government penalties.
As we continue our series about the impact of product recalls on different departments, we examine the role of the maintenance team in product mock recall planning and exercises.
What Does the Maintenance Department Do in Recall Planning?
A maintenance team facilitates various operational activities within a business. In a recall management context, maintenance teams carry out duties that ensure organizations meet product recall responsibilities. These duties include:
- Performing repairs and maintenance on machines/equipment in response to recall notices from the FDA or other government departments.
- Performing maintenance operations as per safety protocols.
- Working with the operations and logistics departments to remove faulty products, materials, and components from supply chains.
- Creating maintenance reports to share with other departments.
- Ordering spare parts for machines in response to recall notices.
- Improving maintenance productivity during and after a product recall crisis.
As you can see, the maintenance department, headed by a maintenance manager, has various responsibilities that ensure an organization meets its recall management obligations. Although the maintenance team doesn’t oversee every aspect of recall management, this department fulfills an important role. Without maintenance workers, an organization could receive fines from the government because of slow recall response times.
What Problems Do Maintenance Teams Come Across?
When an organization receives a recall notice or safety alert, it has to act quickly. Sometimes, in the confusion, different departments receive the wrong information, which leads to poor product recall responses. Maintenance teams that don’t foster good communication with product managers won’t be able to carry out duties properly.
There are several ways to solve these challenges. First, product managers should already have product recall planning and performed recall exercises, should communicate recall notices and delegate tasks to maintenance teams for proper recall management. Communication should be clear, concise, and timely. Otherwise, maintenance workers will be slow to act. Second, product managers should also have a recall management system to use to help facilitate communication to all maintenance teams.
A slow-responding maintenance department could endanger lives. If managers require maintenance workers to fix faulty equipment or replace broken parts, and this doesn’t happen immediately, customers could be at risk because of ineffective manufacturing processes.
Therefore maintenance managers should invest in the latest digital tools like recall management software. These programs provide maintenance departments with unparalleled insights into recall management so they can make smarter, more informed decisions.
Many maintenance teams already use digital tools to track tasks, create reports, and execute workflows. But, sometimes, a mock recall needs to be performed to effectively test these tools to determine if the systems currently in place are outdated.
By performing mock recall exercises you can test recall flow with all maintenance workers (and the rest of the organization) so they can manage product recalls more effectively.
Recall planning and recall management software benefits maintenance teams in the following sectors:
- Manufacturing
- Food and beverage
- Pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals
- Chemicals
- Medical devices
- Supply chain management
- Professional services
- Agriculture
What are the Benefits of Mock Recall PlanNing and Exercises for Maintenance Departments?
The FDA recently published its final guidance outlining steps companies should take to develop recall policies and procedures that include training, planning, exercises, and record-keeping to help significantly reduce the time a recalled product remains on the market.
The FDA guidance describes an array of best practices for creating, testing, and executing a recall plan. Because of the FDA’s heightened expectations, along with the greater risk and complexity involved in today’s recalls, training – including regular mock recall exercises – has become an essential part of the recall preparation process.
It is imperative that your organization plan, train and test for a product recall. This includes developing and executing mock recalls at least twice a year.
Meet Mock Recalls
MockRecalls is a mock recall planning, training and consulting company focused to test your recall readiness.
We are purely focused on protecting your product investment by working with you to create a new recall plan or analyze your current recall plan and then put it through a mock recall or recall simulation test to insure you are prepared for a possible product recall.
Mock Recalls, was created by our sister company Trievr Recall Management. Trievr has been helping organizations in pharma, medical device and several other industries successfully conduct product recalls and withdrawals seamlessly through its SaaS based on-demand system for over 10 years.
While working with many of its clients, TRIEVR discovered that most had a recall plan in place, but many had not tested the recall plan with a mock recall inventory-based traceability exercise or a recall simulation to test the organizations entire process.
To meet this vital need, Mock Recalls has partnered with RQA, Inc., a global leader in providing quality assurance, crisis management, and risk mitigation consultancy and training, to offer a recall simulation and mock recall training program, utilizing TRIEVR’s Recall platform, that challenges your organization’s capabilities and training and readiness, from initial incident identification to recovery of the affected product.
What are the Benefits of Recall Management Software for Maintenance Departments?
Recall management software lets maintenance teams handle the challenges associated with product recalls from one piece of software instead of relying on several digital tools. Trievr, for example, simplifies digital recall management with a SaaS-based system that provides remarkable value. There’s no “software bloat,” so users only pay for the features they need. This could save organizations thousands of dollars every year.
Then there’s the enhanced security. Today, many maintenance departments worry about the safety of digital tools in case there’s a data breach. And rightly so. With cyber-crime on the rise, organizations need to balance security with digital recall management. Trievr takes security seriously and never shares data with third parties. It subscribes to the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield frameworks.
Here are some other features that benefit maintenance teams:
- Product recall templates
- Auto-alert reminders
- Real-time reports
- Cloud-based
- On-demand pricing
The great thing about using a recall management system is that maintenance workers can communicate with different departments from one system, which makes life so much easier. Trievr boasts various collaborative tools for maintenance teams.
Final Word
Maintenance teams are a core component of the product recall management process. However, these employees need digital tools that simplify product recalls. The lack of recall planning combined with the wrong software can make it difficult to execute workflows and this results in poor recall response times.
Looking to test your product recall readiness? MockRecalls will help create and/or test your recall program. Click here to learn more or call us!
Learn more about each department’s role during a product recall