Software para a supervisão de boas práticas de fabricação de uma agroindústria

Abstract

To aid in the process of guaranteeing the quality and safety of food products, several tools can be used, among the existing ones, the Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) can be highlighted, which must be adopted by all food industries and by food services. This study aimed to develop software to assist the Quality Control sector of an agribusiness, located in the west of the state of Paraná, in order to facilitate control over the generation of warnings to employees who fail to comply with Good Manufacturing Practices in in relation to personal hygiene, necessary for food handling, thus guaranteeing better quality and safety of the elaborated products, creating a technology not yet available in the company, and optimizing the working time applied to the generation of warnings. The program was written in the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language, using Microsoft Excel 2016 software. Through a structured questionnaire applied before and after the development of the software, it was observed the expectations that the users had in relation to its functionality, and also questions that involve the quality of the program in operation. Users rated the software with an average final score of 9.2, highlighting their satisfaction, optimization of the time applied to the generation of warnings and, consequently, more intense demands on handlers for proper hygiene practices and guarantee of more quality to the products produced. Regarding the conduct of the handlers, regarding their personal hygiene and practices that involve it, the data obtained through the analysis of the records provided by the company, demonstrated that the non-conformities with greater incidence by the handlers were the presence of long nails with 338 records representing 31% of non-conformities, followed by the presence of a beard with 322 records and 29% and objects in the pocket with 144 records and 13%. It was also found that the incidence of non-conformities is greater from one section to another, with the freezing section with 7.16% representing the highest index and the mechanical refrigeration, sausage, refinery, grease and warehouse sections with 0%, configure the lowest index. Considering the evaluations applied to the Good Manufacturing Practices, to the company's employees, it was found that the non-conformities committed, do not coincide with the wrong answers presented in the evaluations, thus proving that it is not only the lack of knowledge that induces the handler to commit failures in hygiene practice, but also other issues intrinsic to human beings such as motivation, however, one should not exclude the practice and provision of training on Good Manufacturing Practices, and whenever possible and necessary entirely them about the rules and actions to be respected and adopted on the subject.