The leadership team at Kettle Cuisine wanted to increase employee comprehension and maintain a clean production floor, but didn’t have the right systems in place to scale their operations.
With an existing system based in isolated Word documents, updating and distributing the instructions was taking too much time. Taping printed sheets to the wall wasn’t meeting the needs of food inspectors anymore.
As they researched alternatives, they realized Dozuki gave them the flexibility and standardization they had been looking for all along.
Paper Processes Made FDA Inspections a Challenge
Food manufacturing is heavily regulated. It requires extensive data collection, documentation and archives to ensure food safety standards are being upheld. Danell Dow, Head of Talent Development at Kettle Cuisine was busy preparing for an upcoming Global Food Safety Institute (GFSI) audit and was spending long days gathering, updating, and printing work instructions. After taping them to walls via plastic sheet protectors, she realized there had to be a better way.
The combination of lengthy Word documents and limited photos made it difficult for employees to comprehend, and made archiving, updating, and distributing a challenge. “With USDA and FDA regulations, you have to keep documentation up at all times and have previous versions on file as well,” says Dow, “our work instructions would be in a page protector and hung up—inspectors don’t generally like things taped up on walls.”
Dow and the team at Kettle Cuisine wanted to standardize documentation to make future audits easier, but they didn’t have the correct systems in place. Their ideal system included version control, archiving, tablet compatibility, and support for high quality photos. “The biggest benefit we saw from Dozuki is documentation consistency—we no longer have everything held in just tribal knowledge.”
“The biggest benefit we see is consistency—we no longer have key processes held as tribal knowledge.”
Danell Dow, Head of Talent Development
Better Documentation, Organization, and Employee Comprehension
Since implementing Dozuki, Kettle Cuisine has written content uniquely categorized to each department—from management to sanitation. Not only are they benefiting from organized work instructions, they’re also seeing higher employee comprehension. “When our work instructions were finalized and everyone was trained,” says Dow, “food processing goes the same way every time. We don’t have three people doing the same procedure three different ways.”
Paper instructions taped at workstations have been replaced with audit-friendly tablets and mobile devices. All procedural documentation can be updated instantly, ensuring quality standards are being met with regularity and ultimately producing a better product for their customers.
With central management in place, updating new instructions make scaling initiatives and future food audits much easier. Above all, Dow reported a boost in overall confidence when it comes to creating, deploying, and accessing content. “Before, our instructions were just written, but pictures with shorter descriptions in Dozuki have been a lot more effective for everyone.”
“When our work instructions were finalized and everyone was trained, food processing goes the same way every time. We don’t have three people doing the same procedure three different ways.”
Danell Dow, Head of Talent Development
