I’ve had this idea for quite some time and I’m really excited about this project! When I help people with management of their quality systems, how they can organize this information is often an obstacle. This has been made more confusing by the enormous industry of 3rd party software solutions that stepped up to help solve the problem.

The advertising for these systems…is just awful. They drop buzzwords and SEO terms and say “Did you know that UNDER FSMA you have to DOCUMENT THINGS?!” and frankly spread misinformation about what your documentation actually needs to be. The systems DO work, but they’re expensive, a random piece of software your crew has to learn how to use, and users spend the exact same amount of time managing the system as you would any other solution.

In larger companies, they can help provide standardization for documentation that’s extremely valuable, but for smaller teams, you already have a solution in-house if you just learn the skills needed to use it effectively.

I’m happy to share those skills so that you can save your money on software and spend it on food safety improvements (automated sanitizer dilution, floor repair, whatever you actually need!)

Introducing “EXCELing at Food Safety”. Let’s use microsoft Excel, a tool that we’ve had available since 1987, that shows every sign of continuing to be supported and used in all areas of our business.

Enjoy episode 2: Let’s make an index

Good food safety software solutions start with users, not user interfaces. Learn why all of your needs may already be met with Excel, and how learning how to build databases that allow you to ask more questions about the data itself.

In this video we build a simple documentation index (or register). This way we not only have our controlled documents readily available and organized, but we can start using advanced tools like revision tracking/scheduling, hierarchy organization, training requirements, and tag clouds.

Check out other “Excelling at food safety” videos:

Check out other videos I’ve made on the Fur, Farm, and Fork youtube channel.