New Food Safety Quality Hold System Available

"Our customers have been asking for the ability to create positive release holds within our Food Safety Quality Management (FSQM) software, and we’re happy to announce that our updated hold system is available in the latest release of our FSQM Module v9.37.00," said Vernon Smith, CEO of CAT Squared.

Positive release is defined as the release of product out of quarantine only after completing satisfactorily analytical and microbiological safety tests and confirming that legal and specified quality standards have been met. In other words, when you receive something into your plant or produce a product within your plant, it is considered “on hold” until you release it, or it's considered bad until you prove it good.

"Our previous hold system only included shipping holds," said Smith. "And that functionality was only available in our Cold Storage & Warehouse Management Module. This new hold system is more powerful and comprehensive than any other food safety quality software on the market. It improves efficiency over the previous hold system. In the previous version of FSQM, holds had to be placed in the admin system. Now, Q/A technicians can be given access to place a hold directly."

Within FSQM, hold types are configurable, and they restrict movements within the system. The movement types are defined either automatically or can be defined in our system admin. So, a product that is on X type of hold cannot perform Y types of movements. FSQM now includes training departments, which allows users to define group types and set permissions based on those group types.

The hold types in FSQM include:

• Cascading Holds: This hold is applied to the object and affects everything attached to that object. For example, a user can place a cascading hold on a mix lot, and everything that was made from that mix lot will also be placed on hold.
• Shipping Holds: With this type of hold, products can still be picked for orders, but they cannot be shipped until the hold is released.
• AQL Holds: Acceptance Quality Limits holds places goods received on hold until the quality of the goods has been verified. (Note: If you do not select “cascade,” that is considered a positive release hold and is only used for products, spices, and materials.)
• Time-Release Holds: These holds drop off after a predetermined amount of time.
• Freezing Hold: This is a type of time-release hold for a product that needs to be held in a freezer for x amount of time before being shipped.

Holds can be released in four ways: 1) on handhelds directly, 2) on the handhelds when a user performs a restricted movement, 3) in the admin system, or 4) on the touchscreen as a result of a check.

If you are a current customer and would like to test v9.37.00, please submit a case on our customer portal asking for the latest version to be installed in your test environment.

If your company is looking for a complete food safety quality management system, please request a demo to see how we can add value to your operations.