Critical food safety decisions are made every day by food processing employees from production workers to management. The ultimate goal is to provide safe and reliable products that meet consumer demand. In an increasingly automated world, empowering employees to make decisions based on real-time data is one of the most important factors in ensuring security and productivity. Continual improvement and learning should be baked into process development.

Whether establishing new processes or improving existing ones, clear and readily available frameworks help employees understand the dynamic criticality of process control points. There is limited information on establishing these systems, with much of the knowledge base existing in trade secrets. If the ultimate goal is total food safety, then it is paramount to establish industry standards that are clearly articulated and widely accessible.