Zero Defects is a well-established term within ViskoTeepak. It does not mean “perfection” and it does not mean that defects will never happen. It means that defects are “not acceptable”. This kind of mindset should, in the long-term, result in many benefits. For example, it will be more fun to deal with happy customers, focus on value-added work, and a proudness of contributing to a smooth and effective production process.
Many persons within ViskoTeepak are working daily to improve this mindset. One good example of this can be found in Brno, Czech Republic, at our Cellulose converting plant. Here our internal auditors have cross-functional cooperation focused on a common goal within the area of Zero Defects, to comply with strict food safety standards.
Ensuring food safety standards
“As internal auditors, we are tasked with ensuring that our company complies with laws and food safety standards, follow proper procedures, and function as efficiently as possible. Our internal auditors team provides independent and objective evaluations of each department and each process. Each member of our team must pass comprehensive exams before becoming an auditor. These exams include auditing techniques, food safety standards, ISO standards, and last, but not least, our internal auditors must demonstrate knowledge of internal processes.”
Several audits per year
“We are currently a multidisciplinary team of seven fully competent auditors. Each of us has our daily workload, and in addition, we perform 21 internal audits per year. Usually, we perform audits in pairs to ensure impartiality. The average audit time is 2,5 hours, so it´s quite hard – imagine you have to control the plant manager for 2,5 hours...”
“And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The audit preparation itself takes a lot of time as well as the creation of an audit report. Then, after the audit report is approved by the responsible manager, we must evidence all raised nonconformities in Freelo application. This application is a tool for us to ensure that all nonconformities are corrected as soon as possible.”
Facing and solving challenges
The main job of an internal auditor is to identify problems and correct them before they are discovered during an external audit. This is really challenging. “Imagine you must tell your colleague that he is doing something wrong, something that is not in compliance with specific standard or with certain procedure. Then you must force managers to correct nonconformities as soon as possible – to find root cause, which is often a very difficult task.”
Bringing value/benefits
“We are working with a Zero Defects mindset. One of the most important areas to comply with is food safety. We want to help and support ViskoTeepakers in Brno to take ownership of a safe, clean & healthy workplace. Moreover, it’s important to understand the requirement of our customers, which food safety is one of the most important areas to comply.”
Braveness
“In our work we need to be brave, perhaps the bravest employees of them all. We can’t be afraid of finding and solving problems. Wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it. Right is right, even if no one is doing it. When we can identify the correct processes and bring these to the table, everyone will benefit from it long-term.”
