SQT Blog

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI)’s principal function is to take all reasonable steps to ensure that food produced, distributed or marketed in the State meets the highest standards of food safety and hygiene reasonably available.

FSAI NEWS is a resource for all public health professionals, researchers, food scientists, food hygienists and quality control personnel working in food safety. It is a bimonthly publication.

The most recent edition has an interesting article on a frequently asked question on the FSAI advice-line – the difference between a ‘best-before’ and a ‘use-by’ date.

(I hope there is a long ‘best-before’/’use-by’ date on all this parmesan cheese!)

A quick look at ‘Frequently asked Questions’ section on the FSAI website. here shows that it is a mine of really useful information.

We came across this tool for our Six Sigma practitioners but I think it is a useful tool for anyone involved in gathering ideas or tracking/sorting information. Definitely worth checking it out…download it now!

Sticky Sorter is a Grassroots Project, developed by two Microsoft Employees, it is a simple tool for arranging and categorizing virtual sticky notes for affinity diagramming sessions. It can also be used in other information sorting tasks.

Sumit Basu (Researcher, Microsoft Research) and Julie Guinn (User Researcher, Microsoft Office Design Group), co-creators of StickySorter tell us what inspired them to design this handy tool…More

As a HETAC and FETAC accredited training provider, part of our quality system agreed with both organisations is Programmatic Review.

Earlier this year we did self-evauation of our FETAC soft-skills programmes. We are now completing Programmatic Review of our HETAC accredited Six Sigma programmes. Next year we will be completing a FETAC five year review and Institutional Review for HETAC.

We will publish links to the reports on our website.

Our training partner of fifteen years, TMS Consultancy, has recently completed a detailed review of how they work and communicate with their customers and, as a result, to facilitate their continued expansion into new markets, they’ve changed their trading name to Antaris (a guiding star, which has played a key role in safe navigation since ancient times).

As TMS Consultancy, Antaris has been helping clients across a range of industries in Ireland, Europe and beyond, to address the challenges of managing their Health and Safety, Environmental, Quality, Accessibility, Energy and Corporate Social Responsibility issues for many, many years. The familiar faces of Gerry, Shane, Finbarr, Doug and Nick will continue to deliver in excess of 45 different training programmes with SQT Training, to the same high standard of excellence as before.

In line with their commitment to continuous improvement, Antaris has launched a new website http://www.AntarisConsulting.com, which provides more details of their management systems expertise, training and consultancy services and software solutions. They have also completed a significant upgrade of their flagship software product, Register of Legislation, which will be re-launched as Pegasus Legal Register on the 1st July. Pegasus Legal Register is a successful and innovative software solution that makes the daunting task of interpreting environmental and health and safety legal requirements and assessing compliance, easy and simple.

SQT Training has always been proud of our relationship with the Antaris Team and so we look forward to many more years of our business evolution and shared opportunities.

John Lafferty our tutor for Technical Report Writing plans to write a monthly post giving a tip for writing technical reports. Here is this month’s tip.

‘Have a colleague proof read your work’.

A colleague will easily spot your obvious mistakes, you may not!
“This is an unnecessary extra cost”, I hear you cry. However, if you think about it, who is proof reading your work at present? Your audience is, and at what cost to your organization. Not to mention to cost to your personal reputation when silly typos are discovered by your reader. When proof reading the following should be checked; Sense, Meaning and Accuracy.

Sense: Has the writer given the big picture before getting into the detail, so that the reader can make sense of the detail?

Meaning: Is the message clear? Is it possible to take unintended meanings from the words and phrases used?

Accuracy: Accuracy can be divided into Technical and Grammatical Accuracy.

Technical Accuracy: If the report states that the Lead Time was five weeks, was it actually five weeks or is this simply an error? Has the writer failed to include an important fact?

Grammatical Accuracy:
Spelling: Be careful of words that the spellchecker will not pick up, for example, because the misspelt word forms another word.
Omissions: Have individual words or letters been omitted?
Poor Sentence Construction: Fragments; partial sentences. Fused sentences; ones that are too long, typically using conjunctions in place of full stops. Convoluted constructions and over use of the passive voice.
Verb Consistency: Use of the tense that is appropriate to the timeframe in question.
Verb Agreement: Ensure that all singular nouns use singular verbs and plural nouns, plural verbs. Problems can arise during editing and go unnoticed afterwards.
Correct Word Meanings: A mandrel is a rod. A mandrill is a baboon. Don’t make a monkey of yourself.
Jargon, Clichés, Filler Words: Simply identify and delete these, they add nothing to your work.
TLAs: Three Letter Abbreviations or Two Level Analysis or a host of other things; you know what you mean, will your reader?
Trade Names: Writers sometimes have a tendency to use the trade names of pieces of equipment, for example. This can be misleading as the reader may mistake it for a different item made by the same manufacturer. Always give the generic name.