STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES FOR SACHET WATER FACTORIES

One of the required documents to be submitted during the NAFDAC registration process for manufacturers is the “Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)” for key operations. The required standard operating procedures for sachet water factories includes, the SOP for production, SOP for quality assurance, SOP for equipment maintenance, SOP for equipment and factory cleaning and sanitation, SOP for cloaking and use of toilet, SOP for distribution, consumer complaints and recall… and even SOP for the purchase of equipment, accessories, and production materials! Um, abeg, the last one is not part of NAFDAC requirements, technically…

So it is not too hard to imagine what goes through the minds of regular entrepreneurs bold enough to venture into the sachet water production and packaging business, as they tick off the items on the list of required documents to be submitted to NAFDAC. CAC certificate – yes, very clear. Trademark, simple. Food handlers test certificate, fumigation certificate, laboratory reports, retainership agreements, and other sundry documents, all ticked off as simple, with an accompanying understanding nod of the head. And then you remember glossing through a series of SOP’s – Standard Operating Procedures in the list, and reappraise the few items with SOP attached to them as part of the requirements.

Well, the experienced business folks understand what it entails and know how to go about it. However, for the regular first-timers, it is understandable if some assume it is something to be gotten from the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON). While a few others who are internet- compliant, waste little time before searching online for answers.

The standard operating procedures for sachet water factories are easy to write for those with a little experience. They can draft out something reasonable, off-heart, or with an already written sample as guide. But for the inexperienced production manager and business owner, it calls for a little pencil-butt chewing.  Okay, for the sake of those potential factory owners that do not like big-big English, wetin be standard operating procedure sef? 

For a list of equipment and accessories to set up a water production and packaging factory [LISTS]

WHAT ARE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (SOP’s)?

An SOP is basically an outline of required steps for the completion of a specific process. English!

To be candid, the internet is filled with better and easy to understand explanations, so abeg, do the needful. A simple analogy would be, a map with detailed directions of getting to a particular destination. Closer home, SOP’s are like a particular recipe for how to cook Egusi soup… Yes, you are right. There are a variety of Egusi soups, and different cooking methods, which explains my point exactly! The list of ingredients, with particular instructions as contained in the particular recipe, help ensure that the final product is Egusi soup, and not some herbal concoction. In the case of sachet water production and packaging factories, NAFDAC is the gourmet whose standards must be met, or exceeded. Abeg, let’s leave Egusi soup alone and continue…

 Hence, the required standard operating procedures for sachet water production and packaging factories are the different step-by-step procedures carried out in key operations in the course of producing quality sachet water in accordance with good manufacturing practice (GMP), and in compliance with regulatory standards.

A well written and well implemented SOP not only ensures maintenance of standards, but also fast-track seamless integration of people, process, and product. This has the potential of reducing human errors, and attendant production downtime that may result.

BASIC STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES: CLEANING AND SANITATION

Two pdf samples, one basic, and the other comprehensive, of cleaning and sanitation standard operating procedures for sachet water factories are made available for free download and usage. The first SOP for cleaning is a “Basic” SOP integrating cleaning and sanitation procedures for production equipment, accessories, and factory premises. This summarizes the key steps in the cleaning and sanitation processes, written in a format that assumes the production manager or business owner is familiar with the overall steps.

Basic SOP: Cleaning and sanitation [Basic Pg. 1] [Basic Pg. 2].

COMPREHENSIVE STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES (SOP): CLEANING AND SANITATION

This comprehensive SOP for cleaning and sanitation in a sachet water factory is written in a loose format with detailed step-by-step instructions for the cleaning of the production room, cleaning of the various production equipment and accessories inside and outside of the production room (e.g. sachet water packaging machine, UV sterilizer, the microfilters, the raw and treated water storage tanks, the sand and carbon media filters, the ozonator, and the surface pumps etc.),  sanitation of the factory exterior, as well as the various sections of factory interior.

It is written specifically for sachet water production and packaging business owners and inexperienced production managers, to serve as a guide for the factory cleaning staff, the production assistants, and machine operators.

[Pg. 1] [Pg. 2] [Pg. 3] [Pg. 4] [Pg. 5] [Pg. 6] [Pg. 7] [Pg. 8]

[Pg. 9] [Pg. 10] [Pg. 11] [Pg. 12] [Pg. 13] [Pg. 14] [Pg. 15]

For those who wouldn’t mind the little effort drafting out the complete standard operating procedures required by NAFDAC, feel free to use any of the samples provided as guide, or edit to use directly. For others who would prefer we draft the SOP’s for them, our telephone number is scattered all over this website, so do not hesitate to contact us to discuss your requirements.

Check out the basic steps to get NAFDAC  number for your water production and packaging factory […]